
Class 3-A4J1A. 
Book -H5 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT 



A RETREAT 

FOR 

WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

In Fourteen Conferences 



BY 



Rev. J. A. McMULLAN, C.SS.R. 
il 



NEW YORK 
JOSEPH F. WAGNER 



fitfjtl ©fastat 






5 



REMIGIUS LAFOKT, S.T.D. 

Censor Librorum 

3tnprtmatur 

'*JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY 

Archbishop of New York 

New York, December n, 191 5 



Copyright, 1916, by Joseph F. Wagner, New York 



#* 7 -£ 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 

APR S3 1916 

CI.A4276.56 



/ TM). I , 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Introduction 1 

II Sin 12 

III Judgment 23 

IV The Sentence of the Wicked 35 

V Confession 47 

VI The Spirit of Christ: Obedience 59 

VII The Spirit of Jesus: Restraint of the Concupiscence of the 

Eyes 71 

VIII The Spirit of Jesus: Restraint of the Concupiscence of the 

Flesh 84 

IX The Spirit of Jesus: Fraternal Charity: Kindness .... 97 

X The Spirit of Jesus: Forgiveness 112 

XI Prayer 126 

XII Holy Communion 141 

XIII Our Lady 156 

XIV Perseverance 169 



A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 



I. INTRODUCTION 

"Now is the acceptable time." — II. Cor. vi, 2. 

SYNOPSIS. — 1. Though you have made a sacrifice to come here, it is God 
Who has arranged this Retreat for you: 

2. That He might give you the grace of conversion — a grace He will 
not give you unless you ask Him for it. 

3. You would not have asked Him for it in the world, so He called 
you into the solitude that He might speak to your heart. 

4. To enable you to feel (1) your need of this grace and (2) His de- 
sire to give it to you, that you might ask Him for it with earnestness and 
confidence. 

5. The obstacles Discouragement and Indifference should not hinder you 
from asking. 

6. A concluding prayer to Our Lady for grace to make a good Retreat 

My Dear Children in Christ: — You have come here to make a 
Retreat. You have left the troubles and anxieties of Martha in the 
world to spend the week with Mary at the feet of Jesus. And it 
has cost you something. Not one of you but has had to make some 
little sacrifice to be present here. You have made it for the one 
thing necessary — you have come for your soul's sake. In the name 
of Jesus I congratulate you; in the name of Jesus I welcome you. 
For remember, dear children, Jesus has had a great deal to do with 
it. He is more anxious to have you here than you have been to 
come. "You would not have sought Him," says St. Bernard, "unless 
He had first sought you, nor chosen Him unless He had first chosen 
you." His grace and love are ever beforehand with us. "In this is 
Charity, not as though we had loved, but because God hath first 
loved us" (I John iv, 10). He has a very special grace to give you, 

1 



2 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

which He could hardly give you, save by a miracle, in the world, 
so He has called you here. Let us call it the grace of conversion. 
It is not the same for you all. Perhaps not exactly the same for any 
two of you. But you, each of you, need it — need it desperately, for 
your salvation may depend upon it. It may be conversion from sin, 
or conversion from tepidity, or from spiritual sloth, or from vanity. 
Perhaps you do not know what it is you do need. But God knows, 
because He knows you personally and individually. For He is the 
Good Shepherd, Who knows His sheep and calls them by name 
(John x, 3), and actually now He has that grace for you and has 
brought you here to give it you — and give it you He will if you but 
ask Him for it. 

Now, will you ask Him? That is the question that concerns you 
most now; that is the secret of His calling you here. You would 
not have asked Him in the world, that is quite certain; you would 
not have known you needed it. You have too much to do there — 
too many other things to think about and distract you. The roar 
and racket of the streets, the jangle of the car bells, the all-pervad- 
ing whirr of machinery indoors and the incessant clickety-click of 
the restless typewriter and the thousand other sounds of business life 
make such a noise even in your spiritual ears that Our Lord might 
say to you now what He once said to St. Teresa : "I would speak 
to many souls, but the world makes so much noise in their hearts 
that they could not hear me." So He calls you here, where there is 
no noise and nothing to distract you. You come into the stillness 
and quiet of this solitude and Jesus is here waiting for you, as He 
waited for the woman at the well. You can see, though she did not, 
how lovingly He arranged that meeting for her. Some day you 
will see how lovingly He has arranged this meeting for you, though 
perhaps you hardly see it now. She was coming for water, as she 



INTRODUCTION 3 

came every day, at her own time and convenience. She was not 
seeking Jesus ; but He, the Good Shepherd, was seeking her, His lost 
sheep. He has the grace of conversion for her, but she must ask 
Him for it, and He must lead her to ask Him. It is a lovely scene. 
He begins by putting Himself under an obligation to her. "Give 
Me to drink," He says to her. And then, when she is thus at her 
ease with Him and can speak unreservedly, with what divine gen- 
tleness and familiarity He talks to her ; how sweetly He bears with 
her waywardness and perversity, until at last He wins her and she 
asks Him for his grace — as He wants her to. 

Now the same Jesus is here, I say, longing to give you this same 
grace of conversion He gave to her. But, like her, you must beg 
for it. And again I ask, will you do so? You have begun well. 
Jesus allows Himself to be put under an obligation by your merely 
coming to Him. But He wants something more. Give Me to drink, 
He seems to say to you. He thirsts to be thirsted for. He wants 
to see the earnest desire in your heart for that grace He longs to 
give you. You show it Him best by simply realizing that the "Mas- 
ter is here and He has called for you." He is here in the Blessed 
Sacrament, awaiting, "calling and welcoming all who come to visit 
Him." "Attend and see that I am God," He says to us. And we 
shall do that during this Retreat. Twice a day we gather round 
His throne for our conferences, and many times a day you will 
come into His presence to visit Him. I want you to think much of 
Him. I want to make your thoughts, as far as possible, to center 
round Him here in His home of love, to make the Retreat as far as 
may be a Retreat in honor of the Eucharist Heart of Jesus. 

"What do you here?" asked the Blessed Cure of Ars of an old 
man he saw sitting on a bench in the church and staring at the 
Tabernacle. "I see you here day after day, without book, without 



4 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

beads, without prayer apparently, for your lips never seem to move. 
What are you doing? Are you mooning away your time?" The 
old man's answer was an angel's song. "O father," he said quite 
simply, "what can I do? I look at Jesus and Jesus looks at me." 
There, in a sentence, is the work of our Retreat. We are here to 
feel that we are looking at Jesus and that Jesus is looking at us. 
For by doing so we shall realize best what that grace is of which 
we stand most in need, and so be urged to ask our loving Saviour 
to give it us. 

Look at Jesus, then, my dear children, there in the Tabernacle 
for us. Understand that He is the living God, born of the Father 
from all eternity ; the Beginning, Who also speaks to you ; the God 
Who created you ; the God Who died for you ; the God Who made 
you His child by baptism. Then look over your past life and see 
whether you have succeeded or failed in the fulfilment of your ob- 
ligations towards Him. "I thought upon the days of old." 

Look at Jesus and think that before Him, as your just judge, you 
will one day have to render a strict account of your whole life, 
and on His sentence will depend your lot for all eternity. "I had in 
my mind the eternal years." 

Look at Jesus and remember He is the Way, the Truth, and the 
Light, and unless you have His Spirit you are none of His. Ex- 
amine your heart and see, during the quiet, silent days of your Re- 
treat, how far you fall short of your divine model. "I meditated 
in the night with my own heart." 

Look at Jesus and see what, by his grace, you might have been ; 
feel that He is looking at you and that He sees what by your sins you 
actually are. Let that rouse you to fear and remorse, but not to 
despair, for: 

Look at Jesus again and realize He is looking at you in mercy 



INTRODUCTION 5 

and in love, and His voice is whispering to you: "Come to Me; I 
will refresh you." "I was exercised and I swept my spirit." 

Thus shall we do the works prescribed for us by the Psalmist : 
"I thought upon the days of old ; I had in my mind the eternal years ; 
I meditated in the night with my own heart; I was exercised, and 
swept my spirit" (Ps. 76) — works especially fitted for a Retreat, as 
they infallibly lead to the soul's conversion ; for the inspired Psalmist 
continues: "And I said, now have I begun; this is the change of 
the right hand of the Most High" (ib.). For to say, "Now have I 
begun," with efficacious resolution indicates a change of soul which 
nothing but the power of God could bring about — and only then in 
a soul that is willing to receive His grace. 

Now, to that willingness I want you briefly to consider two ob- 
stacles — discouragement and indifference. The first says, "What is 
the use of it ?" The second, "I don't care about it." 

A word about each, and first with regard to discouragement. It 
will come home to you, or I hope it will, that there is a vast differ- 
ence between what you might have been and what you are ; between, 
that is, the ideal and the real "you." A Retreat, in fact, serves to 
impress this upon you. And, of course, it is not pleasant. For 
even if you have been doing, as perhaps you had imagined in all 
modesty, "fairly well," the Retreat points out very faithfully that 
you have nothing to be proud of. "When you have done all things 
that shall be commanded you," says our Lord, "say we are un- 
profitable servants." And a well-conducted Retreat (so to speak) 
leads us humbly to acquiesce in that decision. But now, you will say, 
is not such a state of things very discouraging? And one is bound 
to admit that in a certain sense it is discouraging. But in that sense 
almost everything in this fallen world is discouraging — it belongs 
to the nature of things. "Homo es et non angelus," says the Imita- 



6 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

tion — you are human, and not an angel. You resolve on something 
and you honestly try to succeed, and were you an angel you would 
persevere, and in the end would most certainly succeed. But you 
are not; you are human, and in consequence you don't always per- 
severe, and so you don't always succeed. But we must not lose 
our temper over it — that never does the least good. Our falls 
should keep us humble ; but they should not discourage us. 

Two men looked out of prison bars ; 
One saw mud, and the other, stars. 

and they were both wrong. We won't get to heaven star-gazing. 
No ; it is at times a difficult path, and we must look to our feet. But 
at the same time we must see something beyond our misery and our 
weakness. We must raise our hearts. It will never do to live with 
our eyes fixed forever on the mud. "I raised my eyes to the moun- 
tains, from whence help shall come unto me." Very often our dis- 
couragement is a subtle form of mere wounded vanity and disap- 
pointment. God, perhaps, is pleased with our efforts and we are 
not. We want something more, something to point to, something to 
show. Not merely "the something attempted," but "the something 
done." And perhaps it is so long coming that we lose patience and 
want to box our own ears, like poor little Alice in Wonderland. 

On the other hand, St. Francis de Sales was not put out by his 
imperfections. No; he called them his "dear little imperfections," 
and tried again. We must face the facts. We are dreadfully weak 
— even the best of us — and we are, or should be, trying to be like 
Jesus Christ. What wonder if we at times fall short? Let me put 
it this way : You are behind the counter, we'll say, and an impatient 
customer comes in and asks for an article which you know to be in 
a box on a shelf just out of your reach, and somebody else has the 



INTRODUCTION I 

steps. Well, there you are. You have to keep that impatient cus- 
tomer waiting till you can get the steps or try your best to reach that 
box without them. Like an obliging young woman, you determine 
to try to get the box ; but in vain. You can just touch the lowest 
edge of that box with the tip of your longest finger, but you cannot 
get hold of it. You are just not tall enough. Now, you might be 
sorry for keeping the customer waiting, but surely it would be very 
foolish to sit down and cry because you were three inches too short. 
Yet sensible people there are who bewail their spiritual shortcomings 
with just as little sense of spiritual proportion and the fitness of 
things. 

Ah ! but a man's reach should exceed his grasp : — 
Or what's Heaven for? — (Browning.) 

Heaven — that is the grace of God here and the reward of God 
hereafter — is just for those who are striving after something that 
to their natural powers is beyond reach. We, none of us, can really 
hope ever to be exactly like Jesus Christ, but we shall not be saved 
at all if we give up trying to be like Him. And so if the Retreat, 
like a candid friend, points out that in many things you have dis- 
mally failed, don't let it discourage you. Be quite sure that God 
lets us see our faults for just this one reason : not to be cast down — 
far from it ; but to let us see the grace He will give us to overcome 
our faults if we ask for it. 

And so we must begin our Retreat with great confidence. You 
must be quite sure that God loves you and wants to help you. He 
is not as vexed as you have been with your failures. One reason is 
because He did not expect from you quite as much, perhaps, as you 
did from yourself; and another because He does not forget your 
efforts, even though they came to nothing. Failures have made you 
angry and anxious only to forget you ever tried. But God remem- 



8 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

bers that at least you did try, and thereby showed some love for 
Him. "For," says the Apostle, "He is not unjust that He should 
forget your works or the love that you have shown Him in his 
name" (Heb. vi, 10). 

But whilst there must be no discouragement, on the other 
hand there must be no carelessness, no indifference. A Re- 
treat is too precious a grace to be indifferent about. To be indif- 
ferent now may be to risk the loss of that grace on which your salva- 
tion depends. A Retreat means Jesus passing close to you, not to 
return with the same grace for you again. "I fear Jesus," says St. 
Bernard, "passing by and not returning." This is the acceptable 
time, the day of salvation, when God has promised to hear you and 
to help you. But the time is short. It will soon be over and God's 
special help will have gone along with it. And so it is that the 
Apostle is so intensely anxious about it. "We exhort you," he says, 
"that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For it is written : 
Tn an acceptable time have I heard thee: in the day of salvation 
have I helped thee — behold now is the acceptable time : behold now 
is the day of salvation.' " The point, you see, is this — that indif- 
ference now may lose for us that grace of conversion on which our 
salvation may depend. Let me show you clearly what I mean by an 
illustration. On the night on which our Lord began His passion 
two of his disciples sinned grievously against Him — Peter and Judas. 
To each was this grace of conversion offered. Peter accepted it and 
Judas refused it. Peter accepted it and became a saint — the chief 
of the Apostles — the Rock on which Christ built His Church — the 
key-bearer of the Kingdom of Heaven. But Judas — Judas took a 
halter and hanged himself "and went to his own place." It was en- 
tirely his own fault. The same grace that saved St. Peter was, I say, 
offered to him and could have saved him had he but accepted it. If 



INTRODUCTION 9 

anything, it was offered to him even more lovingly and insistently 
than to St. Peter. 

Of St. Peter it is said : "The Lord, turning, looked on Peter, and 
Peter remembered the word that was said to him, and, going out, he 
wept bitterly." But Jesus does far more for Judas. "Friend," he 
says to him, "whereto art thou come ? Dost thou betray the Son of 
Man with a kiss?" If the devil had not already entered into that 
wretched man how could he have resisted an appeal of such tender 
pathos, of such infinite compassion, of such unconquerable love? 
But what I want you to feel, my dear children, is that it is this same 
grace of conversion that we are dealing with in our Retreat — the 
same eternal issue may be at stake for each one of you, and that 
issue depends on the same condition — the acceptance or rejection of 
it by your human will. As you care for your own immortal soul, 
then ; as you love Jesus ; as you would be a true Child of Mary ; as 
you fear hell and long for Heaven, let me exhort you here and now 
to make up your mind to profit by the grace of this Retreat. Let it 
be a time of true solitude. You have separated yourself bodily from 
the world; let your mind be separated from it, too. Say to your 
worldly distractions on the threshold of your Retreat: "Stay you 
here whilst I go yonder and pray." A time of thought, when you 
look on Jesus and give your soul a chance — "Attend and see that I 
am God." A time of prayer, when you feel that Jesus is looking at 
you and disclosing His Spirit to you. "I will hear what the Lord 
shall say unto me" — but not coldly or indifferently, but with earnest- 
ness and eager longing. "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." 

Once, when our Lord was passing out from Jericho, there sat at 
the gate of the city a blind man begging. And he asked what was 
the meaning of the tumult, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was 
passing by. At once that poor blind man saw his opportunity. Here 



io A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

was the miracle worker — the one man in all the world who could 
heal his blindness. And he was passing by — going with haste away 
from him, perhaps never to return. Think of that blind man's eager- 
ness. "Jesus, Son of David," he cries, "have mercy on me." And 
those that went before bade him hold his peace and rebuked him. 
But the more they rebuked him so much the more, a great deal, did 
he cry out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And at last 
Jesus hears him and bids them bring him to Him. And then, "What 
wilt thou that I should do for thee?" He asks. "Lord," says that 
blind man, "that I may see." And Jesus answered him: "Receive 
thy sight ; thy faith hath made thee whole." And the man saw and 
followed after, glorifying God (Mark x, 46; Luke xvii, ad fin.). 

In that blind man I want you to see a model for your eagerness. 
Jesus of Nazareth in very truth is passing close by you now, per- 
haps never to return. Do be alive to the opportunity that will soon 
be over of getting rid of the spiritual maladies of your soul. "Jesus, 
Son of David, have mercy on me." Spiritual sloth, tepidity or a 
clinging still to past sin may bid you hold your peace ; but for God's 
sake be in earnest ; so much the more a great deal do you cry out : 
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." And He who has come 
so close to you that you might cry to Him — He Who gives you the 
inspiration to cry to Him — will assuredly hear you. Yes, some time 
during the Retreat, when you are at your spiritual reading, when 
you are kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, when you are listen- 
ing to the conference, Jesus will speak to you : "What will you that 
I do for you ?" Again let the answer of the blind man be yours : 
"Lord, that I may see" — that I may see You, that I may see myself. 
That I may see You — all that You are to me, all that You have done 
fos me, that I may love You — and then that I may see myself, my 
sins, my ingratitude, my utter selfishness, to despise myself and to 



INTRODUCTION II 

rise to higher things. "Lord, that I may know Thee — that I may 
know myself." 

And can you doubt the answer of the Sacred Heart ? Oh, surely 
just in proportion to your eagerness will the fulness of His grace 
fill your soul. "Receive thy sight — thy faith hath made thee whole." 
And you, too, by the grace of your Retreat will see and follow after, 
glorifying God — here by preaching Him by a life modeled on the 
example of the virtues of His Sacred Heart, and hereafter by prais- 
ing, thanking and loving Him for all eternity in Heaven. 

That this may be so let us put our Retreat under the protection 
of Mary. Let us say to her from our hearts : "O Mary, my mother, 
help me. Teach me to hear God's word and keep it." Help me to 
learn of you to profit by the near presence of Jesus during this Re- 
treat. Keep my ears shut to the distractions and whisperings of 
the world, but open to the words of my Saviour. This, my mother, 
is to be the day of my salvation, the day which the Lord has made 
for me. Let me profit by it. Let me not receive this great grace 
in vain. Teach me to open my soul to the words, the thoughts, the 
impulses of the Divine Spirit. And, like you, to keep all these things 
jealously, thankfully, lovingly, pondering them in my heart. Amen. 



12 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS, 



II. SIN 

"Know thou and see that it is an evil and bitter thing for thee to have 
left the Lord thy God." — Jer. ii, 19. 

SYNOPSIS. — 1. In what sense sin is "leaving the Lord our God." 

2. People in world do not "know?' and "see" it is an evil. Hence God's 
punishments make no impression. 

a. Fall of angels. 

b. Adam's fall. 

c. Crucifixion. 

d. Hell. 

3. Living in world, you are in danger of admitting its spirit. Hence 
God calls us to Retreat that we may "know" and "see" the evil and bit- 
terness of sin. 

4. Here we are in His Presence Who is "Our Creato)-" and Our Re- 
deemer. Our attitude should be that of repentant sinners, for we have 
offended Him. 

a. As our creator. — Sin is a rebellion and defiance of Him. In 
this lies its evil. 

b. As our redeemer. — Sin is an act of base ingratitude towards 
Him Who died for us. In this lies its bitterness. 

We can never leave God. "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art 
there. If I descend into hell, Thou art there. If I take my wings 
early in the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
even there Thy hand shall lead me and Thy right hand hold me" 
(Ps. cxxxviii, 8, 9). Yet God regards the heart, and when a sinner 
wishes in his heart to be away from God that he might sin, then that 
sinner is to God as the prodigal "who went into a distant country." 
Sin, then, is leaving the Lord our God, in thought and affection ; and 
the prophet would have us "know" and "see" that this is "an evil 
and bitter thing." We need serious and prayerful thought to realize 
this profitably in our souls. 

The world makes light of sin, and of God's punishment of sin, for 



SIN 13 

the very reason that it makes no effort to consider these things. 
"With desolation is the whole world desolate because no one 
thinketh in his heart" (Jer. xii, 11). "He was in the world and 
the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not," for 
the majority of men and women do not trouble to think about Him. 
They do not "attend and see that He is God." He is not for them 
a Personal Being, Whose punishment they fear and Whose approval 
they prize. For them it practically is as if He were not. And as 
they ignore Him they think nothing of offending Him and despise 
His punishments. They have imbibed the poison of the devil's lie 
to our first parents. 

"You shall not die the death." And it has made them utterly irre- 
sponsible and entirely defiant. "We have sinned," they cry, "and 
what harm hath befallen us?" And because God hath spared them, 
they despise the "riches of His goodness and patience and long suf- 
fering." But God is not mocked; nor hath He left Himself without 
witness of His hatred for sin. Our first parents did die the death ; 
and we are all condemned to death for their sin. The angels of 
heaven, the greatest of His created beings, were for sin hurled 
from their lofty thrones into the depth of hell. "I saw satan, like 
lightning, fall from heaven," said our Blessed Lord. And most of 
all does "Christ crucified" preach trumpet-tongued to man from His 
every wound "the evil and bitterness of sin," There does the wis- 
dom of God deign to become our Teacher. How can worldlings 
look on their Saviour dying for sin upon the Cross and say that sin 
is a small matter in the eyes of God. How can they flatter them- 
selves that they can sin with impunity? If "God hath spared not 
His only begotten Son," what will become of sinners? "Weep not 
for Me," said Christ to the sorrowing women, "but weep for your- 
selves. For if in the green wood they do these things, what will they 



14 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

do in the dry?" If the strict justice of God demanded the death of 
a God-made man as an adequate atonement for sin, how can man 
say hell is too great a punishment for the sinner who defies his God 
by his sin, and dies in rebellion against Him? And yet outside the 
Church of Christ men nowadays will brook no allusion to hell. 
They resent the mention of it as an insult to good taste. Hell is out 
of date, it is obsolete, it is medieval. Priests were ridiculed for 
pointing to the disasters at St. Pierre, at Messina, and the wreck 
of the Titanic, as punishments from God. Let us be quite clear. It 
is true they may not have been punishments. "No man hath known 
the mind of the Lord and no one hath been His counsellor." We 
know that. And it may have been but a coincidence, merely, that 
these disasters should in each separate instance have followed fast 
on sins that cried to heaven for vengeance. I say it may have been 
a coincidence merely. It is a matter of evidence, and we can form 
our own opinion, and I know what I think. But when these critics 
speak as though these disasters were too great a punishment 
for sin, and worse than the sins themselves, then we can only con- 
clude that they have not profitably studied the lessons of the Crucifix. 
For in that school of Christ Crucified we can learn with St. 
Augustine that if the whole world were suddenly destroyed by some 
violent convulsion of nature, and every man, woman and child 
living in it were annihilated, that disaster, frightful and appalling 
though it might be, could not in God's sight equal the disaster of 
one single mortal sin committed only in thought. To repair the 
ruin of a destroyed world God had but to speak a word : by a word 
He had made it; by a word He could remake it; but to repair the 
disaster of one mortal sin the Son of God, obedient to His Father's 
Will, must needs come down from heaven and die a shameful death 
upon the Cross. And yet men with the crucifix before them, men 



SIN 15 

and women calling themselves Christians, commit mortal sin and 
never give it a thought. They sin and sin again; they drink in 
iniquity like water, yet they eat and drink, they go to rest, they rise 
to work or play again, as though nothing had happened. 

My children, what can be the explanation of it except just this : 
that men will not think. As of old, so now God sends His preachers 
to make men think. "Cry out, cease not," He says to them. "Let 
your voice sound like a trumpet ; tell the men of Juda their sins, and 
the people of Israel their iniquities" (Is. Iviii, i). God wants to 
warn them and to save them. But, alas ! over how many has He 
now to weep as once He wept over Jerusalem. "How have I longed 
to gather thee as a hen gathered her chickens under her wing; and 
thou wouldst not." They heed not their Saviour. They pass their 
lives in eating and drinking, and in a moment they go down to hell. 
Such is the spirit of the children of the world, and such is the de- 
struction that threatens them. 

Now, dear children in Christ, you live in the world and there is 
danger of your inhaling the tainted atmosphere of its spirit, this 
moral poison of thinking lightly of sin. It would be the beginning 
of your spiritual decay. God has called you to this retreat perhaps 
for this reason above the rest to warn you against it; to renew in 
your soul a healthy horror of mortal sin; to let you see it in the 
way as He sees it ; to convince you once and for ever of its intrinsic 
evil and its cruel bitterness. He has called you here into His 
presence. He has gathered you round His Sacramental Throne 
where "He, the Merciful and Gracious Lord, gives to them that 
fear Him the Food wherein He has left a Memorial of all His 
wonderful works." For He is Himself that Food. "I am the living 
Bread that came down from heaven." We are looking, then, at 
Jesus. At Jesus, the God-made Man, our Creator and our Re- 



16 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

deemer; the great God that made us and the loving God who died 
for us. These are His works for us, the works of which He is 
Himself the Living Memorial in that Blessed Sacrament, and we 
have sinned against Him. We have all sinned and do need the grace 
of God. We have lived in the world, and like the world we have for- 
gotten God. But now at least when we are in His presence and call to 
mind all that He has done for us we should, like His great servants, 
feel abashed and awestruck before Him. Jacob after the vision, 
Moses at the burning bush, Elias on the mountain side, have bowed 
them low and trembled when they knew that God was near. "Depart 
from me," cries Peter, realizing that Jesus was God. "Depart from 
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Before that same God are we 
now assembled. Surely our only attitude can be that of the contrite 
and humbled sinner wishing to do penance for sin. When the proud 
and self -sufficient Pharisees came to John entirely devoid of this 
spirit they were sternly reminded of what was wanting in them. 
"Ye brood of vipers who hath shewn ye to flee from the wrath to 
come. Bring forth, therefore, works worthy of penance, and think 
not to say : 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I tell you of these 
stones could God raise up children to Abraham. Whose fan is in 
His hand and He will most thoroughly cleanse His floor. And the 
wheat He will gather into His barn, but the chaff He will burn with 
unquenchable fire" (Matt, iii, 7, seqq.). Let us be warned, then, 
and come to our God in penance and humility of heart. He is our 
Creator, and by sin we have rebelled against Him : this is the evil of 
mortal sin. He is our Redeemer, and we have despised Him : this is 
the bitterness of mortal sin. 

"Despisest thou," asks the Apostle, "the riches of His goodness 
and patience and long suffering, knowest thou not that the benignity 
of God leadeth thee to penance" (Rom. ii, 4). The benignity of 



SIN 17 

God in creating us should move us to penance. They who cry, "We 
have sinned, and what evil hath befallen us, despise the riches of 
His goodness." Let our cry rather be, "I have sinned, and indeed 
I have offended; I have not received what I have deserved, for by 
my sin I actually defied and rebelled against the God, whose love 
had created me and bestowed on me all. I had, and Whose power 
alone sustained me even in my sin." When you come to die, my 
children, the priest will recommend your soul to God in the words 
of the Ritual, "Remember, she is Thy creature, not made by strange 
gods but by Thee the only true God." And each day holy Church 
makes the same plea for mercy in her office. "Let us weep before 
the Lord Who made us, for He is the Lord our God and we are 
His people and the sheep of His pasture" (Ps. 94). It reminds God 
of His love for us. For only out of love could God have made us. 
Unaided reason might have told us this, but God's word has set it 
beyond a doubt : "With an everlasting love have I loved thee, there- 
fore have I drawn thee taking pity on thee." It was because He 
loved us with an everlasting love that He has drawn us out of our 
nothingness and created us. And He has made us so that He must 
be ever near us. "He made me and placed His hand upon me." 
Yes ! nearer than a mother is to her child is the great God to your 
soul. "Can a mother forget her child so as not to have pity upon 
it? yea, though she should forget I will not forget thee !" His hand 
must ever be upon us. His mind must ever be thinking of us, or we 
should cease to be. Creation has brought our God so near to us 
that, as the Apostle says, "In Him we move and live and have our 
being." 

As a bird in the air, as a fish in the sea, so is your soul in the hand 
of God. Now, do we realize this? Had we lived by our faith and 
understood we were in God's hand, should we have dared to sin? 



18 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IX BUSINESS 

For sin is defying God. Sin is, as we have seen, rebelliously leaving 
the Lord our God in thought and affection. The devil holds up 
some forbidden fruit which he knows will allure our concupiscence, 
our evil propensities, our bad desires; a means of taking revenge, an 
opportunity of acquiring an unjust gain, the gratification of our 
sensuality: like Eve our passion sees the fruit, that it is fair to the 
eye and good to the taste and beautiful to behold, and longs to 
possess it. Conscience, which is the echo of the voice of God, for- 
bids it, "Thou shalt not." Then comes the pause and the struggle : a 
hesitation, less and less as the sinner hardens in sin, but always suffi- 
cient to allow the will to make a conscious choice of evil, and in that 
deliberate choice of a great evil is mortal sin. "I know that it is 

wrong ; I know, great God, that Thou dost say, 'Thou shalt not' ; but 
I am my own master, I can do as I like, and I tell Thee that I will." 

"They have broken my yoke, they have burst my hands, they have 

said, T will not serve.' " 

Now, I say, were God really at a distance in the far off heavens, 
as the sinner imagines Him to be, this would still be bad enough. 
But, remember, even when you sin, God is holding you. In very 
truth you sin in the hand of God. Not merely in His presence or 
under his eye, but whilst he holds you helpless in His hand. 

God took his prophet Jeremias and shewed him the potter work- 
ing at his wheel. He was fashioning vessels out of clay. But one 
piece was hard and would not fashion. The potter tried to mould 
it, but failed. At last, losing patience, he cast it from him and it 
broke into a thousand fragments. And said God to his prophet, 
"Cannot I do with you, O House of Israel, as the potter with his 
clay?" (Jer. xviii, 6). 

You are His, remember, body and soul. You belong to Him, for 
He made you. "What hast thou that thou hast not received, and 



SIN 19 

if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not 
received it?" I. Cor. iv, 7). And if you harden your heart against 
Him, if you will not let Him fashion you as He wishes, if you turn 
a deaf ear to His inspirations, may not that word be said to you, 
"Can not I do with thee as the potter with his clay?" "He has lifted 
you up with infinite love," drawing you out of nothingness, taking 
pity on you with infinite love, holding and supporting you in your 
existence. If you defy Him, I say, can not he cast you down? 
And if He has not done so, is it not because he loves you and 
wants to pardon you ? And should not this goodness of your Creator 
move you to penance? 

When, by a holy device, the saintly hermit Paphnucius had made 
the sinful woman Thais understand that all her sins had been com- 
mitted in the presence of God, she was filled with shame and re- 
morse. She threw herself in bitterest grief at his feet and asked 
how she could ever atone to God for the scandal of her wicked life. 
He gave her a great penance. At his command she gathered to- 
gether all her possessions : her robes, her ornaments, her treasures, 
the rewards of her sin, and of them all she made a great bonfire in 
the square of the city, which her life had scandalized. Then she 
followed him into the desert where he prepared a cell for her, in 
which she passed the remaining three years of her life in awful 
austerity. And he gave her as a penance to say this prayer : "Thou 
who has fashioned me, have mercy on me." It was the only prayer 
she had the courage to say. She dare not call on the name of God, 
she felt too keenly her unworthiness. She could plead no one good 
act in all her life of sin. But this she could say; this she could plead, 
she was the work of God's hand : "Thou who has fashioned me, have 
mercy on me." And we can plead that, too, we too have sinned. We 
make no boast of being His children : as the Jews boasted they were 



20 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

children of Abraham. We have lost all right to that, but we are 
His creatures still, and if His benignity moveth us to penance, we 
can hope for pardon now. "Let us weep before the Lord that made 
us, for He is the Lord our God, and we are his people and the sheep 
of His pasture." 

But now besides the evil of rebellion we must see in sin the 
bitterness of ingratitude. "Hear, oh ye heavens, and give ear, oh 
earth, for the Lord hath spoken, 'I have brought up children and 
exalted them, and they have despised Me' " (Is. i, 2). If God so 
felt the bitterness of sin under the old law, how keenly must He 
feel it now. Has He not manifested his love by acts expressed 
in terms of human tenderness? "My thoughts toward you," He 
had said., "are thoughts of peace." These thoughts, though indeed 
thoughts of love, were hidden in the bosom of God. But when the 
fulness of time was come and God sent His Son, then was that love 
at last made manifest. "The goodness and kindness of God our 
Saviour hath appeared" (Tim. iii, 4). 

It appeared in the manger at Bethlehem, in the workshop at Na- 
zareth, in the hamlets of Galilee, in the streets of Jerusalem, and 
above all, on the Cross of Calvary. "And we have seen it" and have 
known it was the love of God for us. "He hath loved me and de- 
livered Himself for me." Poor Jesus ! As St. Alphonsus sighs, He 
had thought to draw us with the cords of Adam. "When I shall be 
lifted up I shall draw all things unto Me." And yet when He was 
lifted up, when He had manifested His love by dying upon the 
Cross for us, though the sun was darkened and the rocks were rent 
and all nature was thrown into confusion, man remained callous 
and unmoved, nay, scoffing and defiant. And what has been our 
attitude? "They who sin grievously crucify again to themselves 
the Son of God, making Him a mockery." In heart and desire, as 



SIN 21 

far as in you lay, you have taken part in this cruel outrage against 
your God. With the Jews you have cried, "We will not have this 
man to rule over us. We have no king but Caesar." 

Not God, but Mammon. Not Jesus, but my passion, my pride, my 
impurity. Let these rule over me. Away with Jesus. "Crucify 
Him ! Crucify Him !" "Crucifying again to themselves the Son of 
God, making Him a mockery." Worse than the Jews, for "had they 
known they would never have put to death the King of Glory." 
You have known. You are a child of the Faith whom God Himself 
has enlightened. And oh, how bitterly has God felt it. "Had an 
enemy done this," He cries, "I could well have borne it; but that 
you, one who has broken sweetmeats with Me." Ah! that has 
been hard to bear. "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, ye earth, I 
have brought up children and exalted them, and they have despised 
Me." Oh, think how the good God has brought you up and exalted 
you. Recall to mind the Church of your home and of your child- 
hood. See there the font where you were baptized. God made 
you His child there. He rescued you from hell and without any 
merit on your part gave you a strict right to heaven. There in that 
confessional He cleansed your soul from its stains and washed it in 
His own most precious Blood : how generously and how often ! And 
at those altar rails He prepared for you the banquet "containing 
in itself all sweetness," feeding your needy soul with that Bread 
that came down from heaven, His own Body and Blood. And after 
all this and a thousand other manifestations of an infinitely tender 
love He has to lament and cry, "They have despised Me." That is 
what we have done when we sinned. "Hear, oh ye heavens and 
give ear, ye earth, I have brought up children and exalted them, 
and they have despised Me." Despised our God. My dear children, 
think of this. Consider and see what an evil and bitter thing- it is 



22 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

for thee to have left the Lord thy God. I leave you now in the 
presence of your God, your Creator and your Redeemer. Remember 
just as, if repentant, we can plead that we are His creatures and be 
sure of obtaining pardon from our Creator, so even more effica- 
ciously still can we plead the Precious Blood with our Redeemer 
and hope for Mercy, 



JUDGMENT 23 



III. JUDGMENT 

"According to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to 
thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judg- 
ment of God. Who will render to every man according to his works." — 
Rom. ii, S, 6. 

SYNOPSIS. — (1) If the Benignity of God as our "First Beginning" (Our 
Creator and Redeemer who has borne with the rebellion and ingratitude 
of our sins) move us not to Penance — the Apostle would urge upon us 
the Motive of Fear — God is our Last End — Who one day will judge us 
and decide our eternal years. Now to do penance, i. e.: 

(2) to make confession of sin now is easier than to await that 
trial at the end, for 

(a) in confession (i) God is All Mercy and Love — anxious to pardon 
the sinner. (2) The penitent sinner is listened to with gentleness and 
sympathy: (i) His good works are not examined; (ii) His evil deeds 
recounted by himself; (Hi) His excuses allowed; (iv) He is assured 
of pardon. 

(b) but at the judgment — (/) G§ d is simple Justice: The Soul's Master 
demanding an account of its Stewardship. (2) The sinner is treated as 
an enemy and is not listened to. But the devil "sifts" (*) His good 
works; (ii) His sins; (Hi) His excuses; (iv) And shows him unworthy 
of Pardon. 

"We have thought upon the days of old" — of God as our Creator 

and Redeemer — and "the evil and bitterness of leaving Him when 

we have sinned against Him. Thus has God spoken to us as our 

Beginning. "The Beginning Who also speaks to you." Now we 

must think of Him as our Last End, the Judge Who will decide 

our lot for all Eternity — "I had in my mind the Eternal Years." 

It is the continuation of the Apostle's thought : "Knowest thou not," 

we have heard him saying, "the Benignity of God moveth thee to 

penance?" And should it fail of doing so, he goes on to try in the 

words of my text to urge us with the motive of fear : "According 

to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up for thyself 

wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment 



24 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

of God. Let us be quite sure God's Judgment — "the revelation of 
God," is awaiting the impenitent. Our sins must be revealed either 
now, in our own day, by ourselves, in the confessional, or hereafter 
on the Day of the Lord, before the whole world at the Tribunal of 
Justice. There is no other alternative. We must make confession 
of our sins now or await the Judgment of God hereafter. And can 
we hesitate which to choose? We may not like Confession — who 
does? But surely it is much easier than to face the Judgment of 
God. The very attitude of the sinner which disarms the anger of 
God, secures it's being easier. For in Confession he comes in hu- 
mility; he acknowledges himself a rebel against his lawful master — 
an ungrateful son to the best of Fathers. He strikes his breast and 
cries, "Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner." And God "renders 
to him" not "according to his works." but according to his contrition 
— if that be perfect, then is he perfectly forgiven. In the eyes of God 
he is justified. The loving Father receives his prodigal son to the 
kiss of peace and restores to him his lost inheritance. "Come to 
Me, you that labor and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you." 
Trusting to this invitation, and relying upon this promise, the sinner 
comes with confidence to the "Throne of Grace" and is received at 
once with tenderest love and kindest sympathy. His good works 
are not examined! His evil deeds are recounted by himself, in his 
own way, in his own order, with his own explanations, his own 
coloring — nay, even with his own excuses. He knows little of the 
consequences of his sins and perhaps hardly gives that matter a 
thought. And throughout his confession he is buoyed up with the 
consciousness that according to his sincerity is the certainty of his 
pardon and forgiveness. "Come and accuse Me," saith the Lord; 
"if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow." 
You see all is made easy for the returning sinner now. All is 



JUDGMENT 25 

mercy and gentleness, because he is humbled and repentant. Look 
now at the unforgiven sinner at the bar of Divine Justice. Here, 
alas, all is changed ! He dies in rebellion against the Master. He 
comes into the presence of God with the battle cry of hell upon his 
lips : "I will not serve." 

And God is now the God of Justice, Who without vindictiveness, 
indeed, but yet with rigorous justice, will render to every man ac- 
cording to his works. The sinner comes now as God's enemy and, 
strictly, as God's enemy he will be treated. His works, both the 
good and the bad, will be most searchingly examined; his excuses 
most jealously sifted, and all the consequences of his sins ascertained 
and apportioned with rigorous exactness. I want this evening to 
bring this trial home to you. Do not let us think it is imaginary. 
We have not, it is true, any precise data for forming a full and 
complete picture of all that will actually take place, but we do know 
this : That there will be a Judgment — a trial and a sentence, in some 
way, as we understand it. "It is appointed unto man once to die, 
and after this the Judgment" (Heb. ix, 2j). And God surely would 
not have inspired his Apostle to use that word, did He not wish to 
convey the idea which that word usually has for us. Let us think, 
then, of the Judgment, this trial and this sentence. And, first, of 
the trial: to urge us to take advantage now of the Tribunal of 
Mercy, which is still open to us, and so avoid hereafter the rigors 
of the Tribunal of Justice. 

The sinner then closes his eyes in this world, to open them upon 
his Judge in the next. That Judge is Jesus — the same Jesus, the 
same Lord before Whom we are gathered in this Chapel, but Who 
comes then as Master. For (if we dare to say it) God has at last 
asserted Himself. Hitherto He had been the hidden God, the 
gentle Jesus, the patient Lover of souls, the God Shepherd seeking 



26 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

his lost sheep. But He has searched, He has pleaded, He has 
waited in vain. And now the time of mercy is over. "I have called 
to them and they have not heard Me; they shall seek Me, but they 
shall die in their sins." And so He comes to assert Himself as 
Master now. "Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou 
canst be steward no longer. ,, It is the voice of the soul's Creator, 
and the soul will rise to obey. Prepared or unprepared, it will go 
to meet its God, nor can the sinner hinder it. "Man hath not power 
to stop the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death." And 
that sinner, rebellious, impenitent, ungrateful, must stand alone 
before the God he has so grievously offended. 

Oh! what trembling there shall be 
When the world its Judge shall see 
Coming in dread Majesty. 
May God save us from the face of His anger ! May He grant that 
the Church's commendation of our soul be heard in our behalf. 
„May Jesus Christ appear to thee with a mild and joyful counte- 
nance and appoint thee a place amongst those who shall stand before 
Him forever." "For what shall I do," cries Holy Job, "when Thou 
shalt rise to judge?" "They shall call upon the mountains to cover 
them," says Our Blessed Lord. Nay He tells us of men on that 
Day "withering away for fear" in expectation of what shall come 
upon the world. "Withering away for fear." You have seen men 
tremble, doubtless — you have seen a man, may be, his brow beaded 
with sweat in an agony of fear — but neither you nor I, have seen, 
or heard of, nor can it enter in our minds to conceive a fear so 
great as to cause men actually "to wither away." 

And yet the God of Truth assures us that such fear will possess 
those who see the Lamb in His wrath. "It is a fearful thing to fall 
into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10, 31). Yes, God is at last 



JUDGMENT 27 

and finally the Master. Hitherto Mammon had been the sinner's 
Master — the World, Money, Pleasure had been the Master — and 
God "had borne with much patience the vessel fitted for destruc- 
tion," but "God is not mocked" and now the traitor stands before 
his Insulted King — his outraged God to give an account of his con- 
duct. "Oh death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man 
that hath peace in his possessions." His possessions sufficed for 
him; he could do without God. He was at peace. His wealth had 
usurped the place of God in his heart. And now comes the dread- 
ful awakening. Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou 
canst be steward no longer." Never till he heard that summons had 
he even thought of this. He is, after all, then only a steward. His 
possessions belong to Another. His lands — his Crops, his Merchan- 
dise, his Money — these things which he possessed in peace — which 
he administered as he listed — saying perhaps in his soul "Cannot I 
do as I like with my own ?" — these things it appears now are not his 
own. They belonged to God and he was but the steward of them. 
Nay, more alarming still, the very members of his body — the 
organs of his senses, the faculties of his soul — what are all these 
but talents to be traded with "till He come." "What hast thou that 
thou hast not received, and if thou hast received, why dost thou 
glory as if thou hadst not received?" And again and most em- 
phatically "You are not your own; you are bought with a Great 
Price" — the price, namely, of the Precious Blood of Jesus. 

I am supposing the judgment of an unrepentant sinner — but the 
words will be addressed to us, too : Give an account of thy steward- 
ship. Now how are we discharging our duty in this respect ? God's 
claims are really more urgent upon us than upon such sinners. For 
if the world is inexcusable for forgetting God, how much more so 
are we? By Baptism we are called, and actually are, the Children 



28 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

of God — and every time we receive a Sacrament — every time we 
have assisted at Holy Mass — every time we have been present at any 
of the Church's Ceremonies we are reminded of it, for in thus 
using our rights, we acknowledge our duties as "Children of God." 
What double shame for us then, if enjoying the privileges of God's 
Children we shirk our responsibilities, and live as Children of the 
world, forgetful of God, and how much more rigorous an account 
we shall have to render of the use we have made of the "talents" 
which God our Master has lent to us. What could you answer 
were God to ask you now. "What use have you made of your eyes, 
your ears, your tongue, your senses, of your memory, your under- 
standing, your will." All your powers and faculties God has given 
you to sanctify yourself — to make holy the Temple of God — 
"which you are" as the Apostle so emphatically declares. And he 
that violateth the temple of God, he adds : "Him shall God destroy." 
Now have you sanctified yourself: Or have you, God will ask, 
used the talents which I have lent you, as instruments of sin to 
offend Me? 

This then is the first great difference between the tribunal of 
justice and the tribunal of mercy — the first reason why it is so 
much easier to make confession of sin now than to await the revela- 
tion of the just judgment of God hereafter. God acts so differently. 
To us now He is all love — anxious only to pardon us, then He will 
be nothing but Justice asserting and vindicating His long despised 
and neglected rights as Lord and Master over us. God Himself 
deigns to tell us of this change. In striking words He clearly warns 
us not to presume on His always taking that view of our case 
that we would have Him take. "Thou hast hated discipline and 
hast cast my words behind thee — thou thoughtest unjustly that I 
should be like to thee, but I will reprove thee, and set before thy 



JUDGMENT 29 

face. Understand these things, you that forget God: lest He 
snatch you away, and there be none to deliver you" (Ps. 49). 

The second difference lies, as we have seen, in the attitude of the 
sinner himself. Dying unrepentant he stands before God as an 
enemy — and as an enemy will he be treated. No longer will the 
maxim hold as it held in the confessional — the sinner is to be 
believed in his account of himself. Nay — his own account will not 
even be taken — but the devil, most cruel, most cunning, most re- 
lentless of foes, will here become the accuser of the brethren. 
"Satan," said Christ to his Apostles, "hath desired to sift you as 
wheat" — then, was the prayer of Jesus powerful to protect them, 
but at this Judgment that protecting Mercy will be withdrawn — 
and the soul "left naked to its enemy." How will the devil sift us ? 
What test will he make use of we know not — but the first and great- 
est Commandment, "Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God, with thy 
whole heart," would surely suit his purpose. By it he can test our 
good deeds. For unless they were done for love of God they will 
count for little worth here. Whatever we have done, if we had 
not Charity, it profiteth us nothing. Our Lord warns us of the 
consternation of many who can point to their good deeds, but whom 
He will reject on that day with the words, "Amen, Amen, I say to 
you I know you not." 

They did good deeds, but they did them not out of love for God : 
they did them "to be seen by men." They won the praise of men — 
they received their reward! and Christ has nothing to give them 
now. So will it fare perchance with our good actions. Maybe we 
take it for granted that they are all right, but unless they are 
stamped with the image of Christ, unless they are done for God, 
He will not know them. Thus the devil will sift our good actions 
with the test of love. And he will test our love itself by the way 



30 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

we have kept the Commandments. It is the test of Jesus. "Not 
every one that saith to Me, 'Lord, Lord/ shall enter into the King- 
dom of heaven, but he that doth the will of My Father." And 
again, "If you love Me, keep My Commandments." And remem- 
ber it is the devil who is sifting us now, who is proving before God 
how we have broken His Commandments. My children, if we find 
it hard to confess our sins here, what will it be to be accused of 
them by the devil at this tribunal? No breach of any Command- 
ment, no unforgiven sin of our whole life will be forgotten. "I will 
search Jerusalem with lamps and the hidden things of darkness 
shall be brought to light." 

Each sin separate and distinct with its own peculiar malice, with 
its own individual black ingratitude to God, with all the special 
circumstances that add to its loathsomeness and malignity will be 
revealed with convincing clearness and triumphant hatred by this 
enemy of God and man. "Oh, that they would be wise and would 
understand and would provide for their last end." In God's name 
let us see what fools we are when we trust the lying promises of 
the devil tempting us to sin. He has one object and can have but 
one : to triumph over us when we come to Judgment ; to prove that 
we are his slaves, that our love of God in itself has never been the 
sole motive of our good actions, and has not been strong enough 
to restrain us from sin. 

Not content with thus sifting our actions — the good and the bad — 
the devil may now be allowed by God to sift our excuses too. 
"When I shall take a time I shall judge justices. St. Alphonsus 
explains this to mean that at the Judgment God will examine the 
excuses the sinner makes for his conduct, his justices. God may 
allow sinners thus to speak, that He may answer them and justify 
His own ways to man. And as the Psalmist says: "That thou 



JUDGMENT 31 

mayest overcome when thou are judged," God will prove in the 
teeth of His enemies that He has ever acted with equity and love 
and according to His promises. 

We can not think of all the excuses of the sinner, but let me 
mention two. The first: "I have confessed these sins before;" and 
the second, "I did not realize the consequences of my sins." Both 
in a sense are good and urgent pleas for mercy. With regard to 
the first, we have already heard God's challenge to us, "Come and 
accuse Me; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as 
white as snow." And we are bound to believe not to hope merely, 
but to believe that our sins are forgiven by a good confession : "I 
believe in the forgiveness of sins." How, then, can they appear 
against us at this tribunal ? Clearly, and only, if there has not been 
a good confession. Let us take this thought well home to our- 
selves: God has never forgiven a remembered sin unless we have 
honestly repented of it. It remains on our souls still and God 
calls upon us to face the alternative — to get rid of it now during 
this retreat in the tribunal of penance, or to await the "Revela- 
tion of the just Judgment of God" hereafter. 

I have no fear of what is called "upsetting people's conscience." 
A clever, though hardly an ascetic writer, has declared it is often an 
act of great spiritual charity to make people "jump," and I believe it 
is. I am talking to common sense business women, and you perfectly 
well understand that I am alluding now only to those confessions 
that through conscious and culpable carelessness were not good. 
Such confessions I say have not obtained forgiveness of sin. To 
pass over such a possibility as bad confessions during the time 
of retreat might easily be to expose myself to the dread rebuke: 
"They have healed the wound of the daughter of My people lightly. 
They have said, 'Peace, Peace,' where there is no peace." 



32 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

It may be that the wound of your soul can not be healed lightly, 

that a general confession is absolutely necessary, that an occasion of 

sin that has become in your own estimation as necessary to your well 

being as your right hand, or as dear to you as your right eye, must 

be ruthlessly parted with. Now if such should be the case with 

any one of you, my dear child, let me say to you why be alarmed at 

it? Has not God brought you here to put it right? To bring true 

peace to that heart of yours that maybe has not known peace for 

a weary time. Think of the alternative — the Revelation at the just 

Judgment of God. Common sense should decide for you. But 

one greater than your own common sense tells you which to 

choose. "If thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it from 

thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed than with two 

hands to be cast into everlasting fire." "And if thy eye scandalize 

thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee ; it is better for thee having 

one eye to enter into life than having two eyes to be cast into hell 

fire." Jesus, your best friend, who died to prove His friendship 

for you, and He who best knows all, tells you that it is better for 

you to part with an occasion of sin, a person, a place or a thing 

which you know will almost certainly lead you into sin — it is better 

for you to part with it, He says, even though the parting cost you as 

much pain as the cutting off of your right hand or the plucking out 

of your right eye. And why is it better? Because there is no 

forgiveness of sins without repentance — and there is no repentance 

without the resolution to avoid not only sin but all the dangerous 

occasions of sin. And therefore it is that confessions that have not 

included this resolution can not be urged as a plea for mercy at 

God's Tribunal. 

Let us glance briefly at the second excuse or plea for mercy: 
"I did not realize the consequence of my sin." I think that that 



JUDGMENT 33 

must save us from the guilt of actual scandal ; but let the thought 
of this dread trial guard us forever from any share in this devil's 
work of bringing sin upon the souls of others. Terrible will it be 
for the scandal-giver to hear at his Judgment a lost soul crying 
for vengeance on him as to the cause of its ruin and damnation ; but 
more terrible still to have to answer to God for robbing Him of a 
soul, "I will meet thee as a bear that is robbed of her whelps." To 
fill us with horror of this sin God does not hesitate thus to com- 
pare ourselves to a wild beast. And Jesus in awful words has de- 
nounced this dreadful crime. "For," He says, "He that shall scan- 
dalize one of these little ones that believeth in Me, it were better 
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were 
cast into the depths of the sea." 

Now I say I will not think it of any one of you that you have 
ever intentionally harmed the soul of another. But sin is so subtle, 
so varied in its approach, so manifold and stealthy in its attack, that 
unless we are on the watch against it, we may be doing harm to our 
own souls or even the souls of others without our fully realizing 
it. "Who can understand sin," cries the Psalmist ! "From my secret 
ones cleanse me, O Lord, and from the sins of others spare thy 
servant." And if we are conscious that we have not thought of 
these things in the past as we ought, let us resolve as David did 
to make amends for any harm we may even unconsciously have 
done to the souls of others, by helping sinners on their road to 
heaven in the future. It is by our prayers and good example we 
can best do this. "I will teach the unjust Thy ways and the wicked 
shall be converted unto Thee" (Ps. 50). 

Though, then, the plea, "I did not realize the consequences of 
my sin," may save us from the awful guilt of actual scandal, we 



34 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

still may have much to answer for on the score of wilful careless- 
ness, unless we are jealously on our guard against it now. 

Before the Eternal Judge passes His dreadful sentence, I want 
you to think now for one moment of the claim which the devil 
will make for the lost soul. "Just Judge," we might well imagine 
him saying, "this being belongs by every right to Thee. Thou 
hast made her and Thou hast bought her with Thy precious Blood. 
Graces and favors more numerous than the hairs of her head Thou 
hast showered upon her, but Thou hast made her free ; and in spite 
of all Thy favors and in spite of all the many marks of Thy infinite 
Love she has left Thee and chosen me for her lord and master. 
Hadst Thou done for me one hundredth part of what Thou hast 
done for her I should never have been in hell — and wilt Thou give 
her heaven and leave me still in torments? Wilt Thou, Who hast 
declared that 'Thou wilt render to every man according to his 
works/ give her the reward of Paradise who has broken Thy Com- 
mandments and died unrepentant? Who as an unfaithful steward 
has used the talents of soul and body which Thou gavest her, not 
in Thy service but in mine? Of her own free will with which Thou 
hast bound Thyself never to interfere, she has chosen me and re- 
jected Thee. Canst Thou in justice deny me now when I claim her 
body and soul as my slave for all eternity?" 

My children, think it over seriously. Are you putting it in the 
devirs power to make such a claim against you? Jesus is looking 
at you from His tabernacle of love. He is warning you to beware. 
"To-day if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts." 

"See, then," concludes the Apostle, "the goodness and the 
severity of God ; towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; 
but towards thee the goodness of God if thou abide in goodness, 
otherwise thou also shalt be cut off" (Rom. xi, 22). 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 35 



IV. THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 



SYNOPSIS. — (i) The two sentences — The Sentence of Blessing. (2) The 
The Sentence of Condemnation: 
"depart" — Banishment from God. 
"ye cursed." — Effect on the soul. 

the doctrine of hell illustrated from Our Lord's parable of the "Rich 
Man and Lazarus." 

(a) Soul is buried in Hell. 

(b) Soul is in torments. 

(c) Forever. 

(d) Its Remorse. 

(e) Need of Faith. 

(3) Necessity and advantages of the Fear of God. 

"Then shall the King say to them that shall be on His right 
hand: 'Come ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom 
prepared for you.' Then He shall say to them also that shall be 
on His left hand: 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting 
fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels' " (Matt, xxv, 
34-41). 

Here are the two sentences as our Lord has given them, which 
He will pronounce, the one on the good, the other on the wicked, 
at the last day. We have been thinking of the judgment of the 
sinner, and his sentence of course will be that of condemnation. 
We must fear that. But we must not forget the other. For "God 
is not unjust that He should forget your work or the love that you 
have shown in His name" (Heb. vi, 6, 10). Saints have looked 
forward to the judgment to come. "To me," says St. Paul, "it is 
a very small matter to be judged by you or by man's day. He that 
judgeth me is the Lord" (I. Cor. iv, 4). And he gives the reason 



36 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

of his confidence: "Our glory is this," he says: "the testimony of 
our conscience; that in simplicity of heart and sincerity of God we 
have conversed in this world" (II. Cor. i, 12). Could we say that 
we, too, should have no need to fear the Judgment. ... I am aware, 
of course, of the other words of the Apostle : "It is a fearful thing 
to fall into the hands of the Living God." But good people can, and 
do, look forward to the Judgment for all that. For rightly under- 
stood I do not think these words were meant to apply to good men. 
They who "fall into the hands of the Living God" experience the 
shock of surprise — the words imply as much. If we are prepared 
for a thing, if we have been on the lookout for it beforehand, we 
receive no shock when it happens : it does not take us by surprise, 
we do not "Fall into it." And good men who have lived in the 
presence of God, who have rejoiced to think of His nearness, whose 
consolation it has been to feel that His hand was ever upon them 
while underneath were the Everlasting arms — how can it suddenly 
become for them "a fearful thing to find themselves in His hands" ? 
No, surely, then the words are not meant for the good but as a 
warning to the wicked. Analogously Our Lord says that He will 
come as a "thief in the night," that we may so prepare that He may 
not be a "thief in the night" for us. "Watch ye therefore and pray." 
He says "for at what hour you think not the Son of man shall 
come. We should not then imagine the Judgment will be for all a 
time of unmitigated horror. The wicked indeed "will wither away 
with fear," says Christ. But He adds to His followers, "When these 
things begin to come to pass look up and lift up your heads, for your 
salvation is at hand." In characteristically bold words St. Paul 
would banish for ever all vain fears from the Just, "Who is he," he 
cries, "that shall accuse against the elect of God? God (is He) — 
that justifieth. Who is he that shall condemn? Christ Jesus — (is 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 37 

He) — that died: yea, that rose again; Who also maketh interces- 
sion for us." Is it possible, he seems to ask, that you should believe 
that such a God and such a Saviour would condemn you if you are 
trying to serve Him? 

I have spoken thus because if I go on now to speak of the sentence 
of condemnation, I want you never to forget, even in thinking of 
His severity, "That the Lord is compassionate and merciful, long 
suffering and plenteous in mercy." Who if we turn to Him now 
"will not deal with us according to our sins, nor reward us according 
to our iniquities : But according to the height of the Heaven above 
the earth He will strengthen His mercy toward them that fear Him" 
(Ps. 102, 8-1 1). 

Let us be firmly persuaded of God's mercy first and then we can 
go on to think of His severity towards those who die in sin with 
greater profit to our souls and without danger of terrifying ourselves 
with foolish and inane fears. 

We are now in His presence who will one day judge us: Who 
will pass that sentence which will decide our fate for Eternity. His 
words are loving words of invitation now — will His last word be 
that awful word "Depart?" It is a blessed and holy thing to feel 
His nearness now, to realize that His hand is upon us — will it ever 
be "a fearful thing to find ourselves in the hands of the Living 
God?" My children, the sentence of condemnation is a possibility- 
God does not want to utter it — He would rather suffer His bitter 
passion and death over again than pronounce it against you : — but 
pronounce it He will — nay, according to the purposes of His divine 
Providence pronounce it He must — if it is the sentence that our sins 
have written against us. "He will do His strange work," says Isaias. 
"His work is strange to Him." Let us then face this possibility. 



38 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Let us imagine we hear Our Lord pronounce His dread sentence on 
some unhappy soul. "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting 
fire." Depart — already has hell begun for that sinner — that word, 
"Depart," has sealed his eternal fate— did no other word follow. 
"To be with Jesus is a sweet Paradise. To be without Jesus is a 
grievous hell. Saints have felt that even in this life. We shall all feel 
it at the end. The soul's essential craving for happiness cannot be 
satiated but in God. Sinners strive to satisfy that craving with the 
things of earth. But in vain. "The famine" comes at last "when 
they have spent their substance living riotously." The craving is 
still unsated. Nay, though they lower themselves to the beasts and 
try to fill themselves with the things that swine do eat — they are 
hungry still. Sooner or later the soul will find this out. "I will arise 
and I will go to my Father" — if the sinner would but give it its de- 
sires. "Thou hast made my heart for thyself," cried one who, like 
Solomon, had drunk deep of life's delusive pleasures and found in 
them nothing but vanity. "Thou hast made my heart for Thyself 
and it can never rest till it rest in Thee" (S. Aug.). No God would 
have failed in His creation — that is, God would have ceased to be 
God — if your heart which He has made for Himself could find last- 
ing rest and happiness in anything less than Himself. Alas, we can 
blind ourselves to this now : but when we see our God we can blind 
ourselves no longer. Then shall we realize with a conviction that is 
part of our very being that God is the one sole object of our soul's 
desire: He is its Happiness, its Destiny, its Hope, its All. Him 
our soul must have or perish miserably. And with every fibre of its 
being, it will long to possess Him. 

"I go before my Judge," cries the soul of Gerontius — 
And the Angel— "Praise to His name" ; 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 39 

The eager spirit has darted from my hold 
And with intemperate energy of love, 
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel, 
But ere it reach them, the keen sanctity, 
Which with its effluence like a glory clothes 
And circles round the Crucified has seized, 
And scorched and shrivelled it — and now it lies — 
Passive and still before the awful throne. 
O Happy, suffering soul, for it is safe — 
Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God. 

"For it is safe" — oh, my children, what of a soul that is not "safe" 
— what of a soul that is lost? What if it lies there not quickened 
by the glance, but blasted by the curse of God? In the days of His 
flesh Jesus once sought fruit of a tree and there was none: and 
turning He cursed that tree and at His word it withered to the roots. 
What will it be for the immortal soul to be branded by the curse of 
this same God, its Maker, for all eternity. "Depart from Me, you 
cursed — into everlasting fire." 

Everlasting fire — Hell is a reality — and we must think of it not 
merely as a doctrine that we hold on the express teaching of Christ 
Himself, but as an actual fact — nay, even again, as a dread possibil- 
ity. Let us recall our Lord's teaching : 

He tells us of a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen 
and feasted sumptuously every day. And with this man he con- 
trasts the beggar Lazarus, who sat at the rich man's gate begging. 
"It came to pass," says Christ, "that the beggar died and was carried 
by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died 
and he was buried in hell. And, lifting up his eyes, when he was in 
torments, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom : and 



4 o A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send 
Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my 
tongue, for / am tormented in this flame." And Abraham said to 
him : "Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy life- 
time and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and 
thou art tormented. And, besides all this, between us and you there 
is fixed a great chaos, so that they who would pass from hence to you 
cannot, nor from thence come hither." And he said : "Then, Father, 
I beseech thee that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, for 
I have five brethren that he may testify to them lest they also come 
into this place of torments." And Abraham said to him, "They 
have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them — if they hear not 
Moses and the prophets neither will they believe if one rise again 
from the dead" (Luke xvi, 19). 

Here, then, we have Our Lord's teaching clear and defined on 
this dread doctrine of hell. Let us consider it together. 

He tells us first that the soul is "buried in hell" — the living soul. 
The mind refuses to think of the horrors that afflict the unfortunate 
being who is buried alive — the imagination shrinks, cowering from 
the ghastly spectacle. Yet Jesus, the God of Truth, uses that word 
to picture the disaster to the lost soul. It is buried alive. Flames 
that give no light — for hell is "the eternal darkness" — will bind 
the soul, as in serpent coils, in the pit of hell, more strait, more 
narrow, more confined than the grave could ever be to the living 
man. And it is the immortal soul itself. Death or madness must 
soon end the conscious suffering of the living amongst the dead. 
But in hell the spirit endowed with the vigor and vitality of a life 
that can never end — to which freedom seems an essential attribute, 
must struggle helplessly and hopelessly against its strait confine- 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 41 

ment for as long as God shall be God. And after millions of ages 
the shrieking horror of the shock with which it first realized its 
hopeless imprisonment will be as keen, as intense, as penetrating as 
then. 

And, cries the wretched man, "I am tormented in this flame." For 
not only does the fire bind and hold its victim, but afflicts and tor- 
ments it too. "They shall be salted with fire," says Holy Scripture. 
"For as salt penetrates and permeates into every part of the meat, 
this tormenting flame will pierce the soul through and through with 
exquisite torture. Oh, who can dwell," cries the prophet, "with 
devouring flames ? On sins and on the stains of sins will these de- 
vouring flames prey for ever. In those things in which a man has- 
offended in those shall he be most grievously tormented." He who 
denied his palate no indulgence, who "feasted sumptuously every 
day," shall thirst for a drop of water for all eternity. Remember 
this when you are tempted "to serve injustice" with the senses or 
powers that God has given you; that these same powers, stained by 
sin, may serve as prey for the devouring flames for all eternity. 
"Mine eye hath wasted my soul" (Lamentations iii, 51). 

Abraham tells the lost soul it is impossible to come to his help, for 
he says, "Between us and you there is a great chaos fixed." Now, 
what is this chaos? Chaos means confusion — and the confusion is 
in the sinner's own heart. "Thy destruction shall be in the midst of 
thee." The longing love for its Maker is, as we have seen, essential 
to the soul, and once the soul has seen the "King in his beauty," 
that longing becomes an absorbing passion. But the will of the sin- 
ner, perverted by a life of defiance and hatred of God, is fixed un- 
changeably in its utter rejection of Him. Without a miracle of God 
that will can never be altered. Hence "the chaos" — fixed and eter- 
nal — the soul by its divinely implanted instinct longing ceaselessly 



42 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

but hopelessly for its God — and the perverted will turned in un- 
quenchable hate and undying rebellion against Him. 

It is the restless panting of their being 
Like beasts of prey who caged within their bars, 
In a deep, hideous purring have their life 
And an incessant pacing to and fro. 

Let this thought teach us, my dear children, the danger of re- 
peated sin — we are strengthening our will thereby against God — and 
every deliberate evil choice intensifies that perversity. And should 
we die with our will thus perverted and defiant — perverted 
and defiant must it remain for all Eternity. People ask why 
God punishes sin for ever — the answer is that sinner defies Him 
for ever. Were God to allow the sinner to enter heaven that 
sinner would yet be turned in hatred against Him and Heaven 
would be hell for him. It is not God — but the sinner's hatred of 
God — that makes hell eternal. "Your iniquities have divided be- 
tween you and your God" (Is. lix, 2). 

In the rich man's next request — that his brothers should be warned 
"lest they also come to this place of torments," Our Lord would re- 
mind us of the torture of remorse. These brothers were, presumably, 
what he himself had been — men leading careless lives, utterly for- 
getful of the soul and its needs — clothed in purple and fine linen 
and feasting sumptuously every day — every whim catered to; every 
desire gratified — what state could be happier than theirs, what life 
more enjoyable? And yet this unfortunate brother, who had tasted 
it all and knew well by experience all the pleasure it could possibly 
afford, is earnest to have them warned even by a miracle — "lest they 
also come to this place of torment." Alas, poor wretch, how bitterly 
he bewails his own folly now. "What doth it profit a man if he gain 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 43 

the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?" Remorse is a 
torment we can but faintly realize in this world. "Hope springs 
eternal in the human breast" : and we know there are few evils that 
are really without remedy. Even the suicide is buoyed in his rash 
act by the hope of something better. But in hell the despair is abso- 
lute. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." 

Perhaps because it is so alien to our natural temperament and 
therefore so hard for us to realize, that our Lord with such insist- 
ence calls attention to this torment. Time and again He speaks of 
hell as the place "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not 
extinguished" — thus seeming to point to the remorse of conscience 
first as a greater torment than even the fire of hell itself. This re- 
morse is indeed part of ourselves; it is innate in our conscience — 
but how little control even here have we over its reproaches. In 
hell it will completely dominate the sinner : and hiss out its unending 
revilings for all eternity. "Fool, fool, it will cry : what are you doing 
here — you, a Child of God, with devils in hell? You whom God 
made for Himself, for whom a throne in heaven, bought by the 
Blood of Christ, was made ready and waiting — who could have been 
saved for the asking. Fool, you have lost Heaven — you have lost 
Jesus, you have lost Mary, you have lost your guardian angel, you 
lost your patron saints, you have lost all whom you really loved: 
your parents, your sisters, your brothers, — all who have gone before 
you in the Faith, and who were longing and waiting for you in 
heaven — all these you have lost and have gained in their stead the 
torments of hell, the society of hateful demons — for what? for 
what? You fool, for what? For less than the apple of paradise! 
less than the mess of pottage! for less than the thirty pieces of 
silver! — Ah, for the cruel gratification of that contemptible spite! 
that pride — that sneaking jealousy, that degrading sensuality — for 



44 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

those things of which you are now ashamed — oh, fool, you have 
made your choice and for all eternity you must abide by it ! "Say- 
ing within themselves, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit : 
we fools; we wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruc- 
tion. What hath pride profited us, or the boasting of riches — all 
those things are passed away like a shadow — but we are consumed 
in our wickedness. Such things as these the sinners said in hell" 
(Wisd. v, 3-14). 

Abraham's answer to the lost soul pleading that his brothers 
might be warned, is well worthy of our consideration. "If they 
believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if one 
should rise again from the dead." For we have a Greater than 
Moses and the Prophets — One, too, who has risen from the dead, 
Jesus Himself, to teach us, and yet, have all Catholics a faith in this 
doctrine that really influences their lives? Is there not reason to 
fear that the mawkish sentimentality that passes for Religion now- 
adays is driving out that healthy fear of hell which is essential to 
the Catholic spirit? "I am afraid," said a lady to me once, "I can 
not accept your theory of hell. I prefer to follow Canon Farrar 
who holds that the punishment is not eternal. And really, Father, 
is it not much nicer to go to heaven by the way of love?" 
Now that lady called herself a Catholic and went frequently to the 
Sacraments. With her you see hell was a matter of theory. If 
the poor thing meant what she said — and sometimes people seem to 
have reached to such an intensity of affectation as really to have 
become incapable of doing so — but if she did, then surely she had 
lost her faith, and the idea that she was going to heaven by the 
way of love was simply a deceit of the devil. Be quite sure, my 
dear children, we must work out our salvation with fear and 
trembling, or never work it out at all. I know St. John says: 



THE SENTENCE OF THE WICKED 45 

"Perfect love driveth out fear." Yes, but let us make sure it is 
perfect love and not sheer impudence. The saints in heaven have 
no fear; but no saint on earth was ever without the fear of God. 
What saints have ever surpassed St. Alphonsus, St. Teresa, St. 
Philip Neri, in their love of God, and yet read their lives and you 
will ever find them full of the fear of losing God. St. Alphonsus 
and St. Teresa tell us distinctly they owe their conversion to God 
simply and directly to the fear of hell. 

Let us at least then resolve, my dear children, not to be caught 
by the "Pleasant Sunday Afternoon" spirit of these times. Let 
hell be the dread reality for us that it was for the saints. Don't 
think it will sour you. St. Alphonsus was not sour, St. Teresa was 
full of an engaging kindness, and St. Philip was the sweetest saint 
that ever lived, yet they feared hell. Even our dear Lady tells us 
we must live in fear if we wish for mercy. "His mercy is from 
generation unto generation to them that fear Him." And, finally, 
what could be more convincing than the words of Christ Himself : 
"And I say to you, my friends : Be not afraid of them who kill the 
body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will 
shew you whom ye shall fear: fear ye Him who after He hath 
killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him" 
(Luke xii, 4-5). 

God though He is, could He speak plainer? After that I say, 
what is the use of telling us we insult God by fearing. Here we 
have Christ's own words to His friends, mind you ! — "Fear Him." 
Yes, let love, if God should so permit, grow so perfect in our hearts 
as to drive out fear, even before we reach the security of our last- 
ing Home; but do not let us be so rash as to anticipate this work 
of love by driving out fear ourselves. We can with more security 
leave the end of our course in the hands of God, if meanwhile we 



46 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

have done our best to look after the beginning. And remember; 
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps. ex, 10). 
At any rate, then let us begin in fear — in definite, true fear of this 
dread sentence of condemnation : "Pierce my bones with Thy fear, 
for I am afraid of Thy Judgments." It is in this way alone we can 
secure for ourselves the means and reward of perseverance: 
"Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord. He shall delight ex- 
ceedingly in his commandments. Glory and wealth shall be in his 
house and his justice remaineth for ever and ever" (Ps. cxi, 1-3). 



CONFESSION Al 



V. CONFESSION 

"Let us go with confidence to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain 
mercy." — Heb. iv, 16. 

SYNOPSIS. — (/) Because Jesus so lovingly invites us we should approach 
to the Sacrament of Penance with confidence. 

(-?) That confidence should be based, not on feeling or sentiment, but: 

(a) on faith, (i) Jesus proves His power as Man to forgive sin. 

(2) Jesus gives that same power to His Apostles and their 
successors. 

(b) on hope. (1) Which guards us against the presumption of those 

who make hurried and careless confession. 
(2) And against the despair of those who make sacrilegious 
confession. 

(c) charity. We should love the Sacred Heart too much to allow it to 
agonize over the Precious Blood being shed in vain. 

We have thought of the Tribunal of Justice and the sentence of 
Condemnation : now we are to think of the Throne of Grace and the 
sentence of Mercy. For the sincere repentance of those sins 
which at the revelation of the just Judgment of God would have 
brought down upon us His eternal curse will, before the Throne 
of His Mercy in the Confessional, obtain for us His pardon and 
forgiveness. We must be sure of this, if we are to go with con- 
fidence to that throne. We must be quite sure that God loves us 
individually. "He loved me" we must say with St. Paul, "and de- 
livered Himself for me." We are here in His Presence and that 
Sacred Heart is there in the Host beating with love for us, and His 
voice bids us come to Him. He does not wish to condemn us. 
"How will He condemn thee repenting who died that thou mightest 
not be condemned?" asked St. Thomas of Villanova; "how will He 
reject thee returning who came from heaven to seek thee flying 



48 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

from Him?" "Come to Me," is His invitation, "I will refresh you." 
And He challenges us to prove Him false to His word. "Come and 
accuse Me — if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as 
snow." What is there that God could have said or done more to 
make it clear even to the most wicked or the most timorous that 
He does not will the death of the sinner but that the sinner turn 
from his way and live. Remembering then God's love for us, His 
desire to save us, His loving invitation to repentance, "let us go 
with confidence to the throne of grace," resolving to get rid of our 
sins by a sincere and humble confession. That, believe me, is the 
great work of the retreat. It is the work the devil hates most, and 
the work he sets himself with greatest hatred and cunning to de- 
stroy. Be warned against him, and let me suggest to you that if 
your confidence is to withstand his insidious wiles it must be a 
strong confidence that has its foundation fixed deep in the super- 
natural virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. 

What do I mean by a Confidence based on Faith ? You say every 
day, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," and by it you mean 
that when you have made a good confession you believe your sins 
are forgiven. At least that is what you should mean, and I hope 
what you do mean. But do you think all Catholics mean this? I 
wish I could be sure of it. I speak with the strongest conviction 
when I say that if all Catholics did, half the troubles and worries 
about confession would be done away with. It is quite seriously 
true that there are many excellent Catholics — Catholics willing to 
die for their Faith — who on this one matter are pure and simple 
Protestants. They don't believe — they judge, and they judge on 
the feeblest and most unreliable of all criteria — their feelings. It 
is nothing but Protestantism, and a weak and mawkish Protestant- 
ism at that. They believe their sins are forgiven when they feel 



CONFESSION 49 

they are forgiven, and not till then. Their own priests may re- 
assure them, priests they go to in other parishes may reassure them, 
missioners may try their hand — nay, I believe if an angel from 
heaven were to try to reassure them, they would still want to con- 
fess to another angel because as they would almost certainly say 
they did not feel quite satisfied. Let us make up our minds quite 
decidedly that we believe our sins are forgiven not because we feel 
they are, but because having fulfilled the conditions our Faith lays 
down for us, God through His appointed minister assures us that 
they are. It is not a spiritually healthy attitude to adopt to imagine 
we have put everything quite right ourselves and have taken good 
care to leave absolutely nothing to the mercy of God. Cocksure- 
ness, so to speak, or the Jack Horner "Oh, what a good boy I am" 
sentiment, finds no echo in the lives of God's saints. Very often 
God leaves his best friends in darkness,, just in order that they 
should not feel satisfied. "When you shall have done all things 
that are commanded, you say 'we are unprofitable servants' " (Luke 
xvii, 10). We may, of course, desire warmth and devotion when 
we go to our Confession ; we may pray for it, and thank God should 
He vouchsafe to us that inward peace and contentment, which often 
comes with a sincere confession as an assurance of forgiveness. 
But we must not rely on it: we must not make it the test of the 
forgiveness of our sins. And the reason is obvious. If we do, our 
confidence becomes the plaything of our feelings, so that unless our 
fervor guarantees for us beforehand our forgiveness, it becomes 
impossible to carry out the Apostle's injunction and "approach with 
confidence to the throne of grace." 

Not feelings, then, but Faith is to be the sure foundation of our 
confidence — Faith in our Lord's word. Let us be quite clear about it. 
Do you remember when, after His kind word to the palsied cripple, 



50 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

"Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee," the wretched 
Scribes and Pharisees murmured amongst themselves, "He blas- 
phemeth; no one can forgive sins but God alone," what our Lord's 
answer to them was ? It is worth remembering, for such murmurers 
are living to-day here in our midst, and all round us we can still 
hear them sneering, "No one can forgive sins but God alone." 
Well, what did our Lord say? These are his words: "That you 
might know the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, 
young man, I say to thee, arise!" That was His answer. He 
worked an astounding miracle to prove that what He had said was 
true — that that young man's sins were forgiven him. But notice 
carefully His words. It would have been quite to our Lord's pur- 
pose and a quite obvious retort to his opponents' malice, out of their 
mouth to have shown that since He had proved He had forgiven 
that man's sins and no one forgives sin but God — that therefore He 
was God. He might have done that, but He does not. And the fact 
gives an added significance to the words He actually does use. 
"That you might know," He says, "that the Son of man" (He does 
not say the Son of God) "hath power on earth" (not in heaven) "to 
forgive sins." He is answering an objection clearly put, viz.: that 
God alone had power to forgive sins. And His answer supported 
by a miracle is : that He as man had power on earth to forgive sins. 
It is no fair retort to say that Jesus, being God as well as man, 
forgave sins as God, for He works the miracle to show that He 
forgave sin emphatically not as God but as Man. No, He proves 
to their teeth that He as Man has power to forgive. But now grant- 
ing that the miracle proves no more than what the Jews were ready 
to admit without any miracle, viz. : that God has power to forgive 
sins. At any rate it must be admitted that Jesus, the God-made 
Man, had power to forgive sins on earth. Very well. Come now 



CONFESSION 51 

to another scene. In the 20th chapter of his Gospel St. John de- 
scribes an event that took place in the Supper room on the night of 
the first Easter Sunday. Our risen Lord appeared suddenly 
amongst His disciples and greeted them with the words : "Peace be 
to you." Then He said to them: "As the Father hath sent Me, I 
also send you." When He had said this He breathed on them, and 
He said to them : "Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall 
forgive, they are forgiven them." Understand well what this 
means. He gives to His disciples the same power that His Father 
had given Him. "As the Father hath sent Me I also send you." He 
had proved, as we have seen, that amongst other things He had the 
power of forgiving sins. That same power He now gives to His 
Apostles; and, as if to prevent all misconception about it, as if to 
meet the objection with which he Himself had been assailed and 
which as a fact of history has ever been urged against the claimants 
of this power, He clearly and emphatically defines the gift he grants 
them, nay, confers it with a solemn and sacramental ceremonial. 
"He breathes on them," St. John says, and then adds these sacred 
words : "Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, 
they are forgiven them." Words surely have lost their meaning if 
Christ did not intend to give power to men on earth to forgive sins. 
God though He is, what more could He have said or done to im- 
press this truth on the minds of men. If there be those who read 
their Bible with an open mind, and still doubt it, all we can say is 
that the fault is all their own. 

Well, at any rate we as Catholics believe and we profess our 
belief whenever we say: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," that 
God has given power to men on earth (to the Apostles and their 
rightly ordained successors to the end of time) to forgive the sins 
of those who with due dispositions seek pardon for them. But 



52 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

now is your belief a practical one ? Does it help you in Confession ? 
This is what I mean when I say that our confidence should be based 
on our faith — that is a sure foundation. To believe that when the 
priest pronounces over us the words of Absolution, our sins are 
forgiven. That in the name and with the power of Christ he can 
say to us, "I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," in that firm faith and not 
in any passing or deceptive emotion should we approach with con- 
fidence to the throne of grace that we may find mercy. 

Supernatural hope helps our confidence by enabling us to over- 
come its two most deadly enemies — Presumption and Despair. Our 
sins will most certainly be forgiven if we do what God requires of 
us. Now God requires that we should tell our sins — that we should 
be sorry for them and willing to do penance for them. These three 
conditions: Confession, Contrition and Satisfaction, by which I 
here mean "the willingness" to do the penance the priest may give 
us, are essentially necessary for the valid reception of the Sacra- 
ment. It is as impossible to have the Sacrament of Penance with- 
out them as to bestow Baptism without water. Now altogether apart 
from what are known as bad confessions, it is possible that, without 
any sacrilegious malice, carelessness about these essential condi- 
tions may entirely rob our confession of its Sacramental efficacy. 
So you see it becomes a serious matter. The source of the danger 
lies in this: that besides its sacred and supernatural aspect the 
Sacrament of Penance has a very human side as well. You know 
the priest. You are in his district. He calls at your house. You 
collect — may be — for his altar society. Or you help in the sacristy. 
In a hundred ways you are brought into constant friendly and 
familiar intercourse with him. For this reason you prefer to go to 
some other priest to confession. Or for this very reason, as it may 



CONFESSION 53 

be, you prefer to go to him. Well, whichever way you decide, your 
choice you see is influenced largely by human and natural con- 
siderations. I am not blaming you, of course. I am only noticing 
a fact that is so ordinary and every-day a matter that one can 
hardly see how it is to be avoided; but I notice it to show you 
how the human element necessarily enters into the Sacrament of 
Penance. But quite obviously the human element is for all of us 
a distinct danger. We get used to the Sacrament. The time we go, 
the priest we go to, the people perhaps we meet with when we go, 
nay, the very sins we confess — all serve to impress us with the 
weekly or fortnightly routine of it all, and proportionately to rob it 
of its sacred character. Let us during our retreat take ourselves 
seriously to task about the way we make our confession. Many a 
one, believe me, can date his or her true conversion to God from 
the resolution they made during retreat to be more careful and 
serious in their regular Confessions. 

"Before prayer," says the preacher, "prepare thy soul and be 
not as one that tempteth God." If carelessness in our ordinary 
prayer is thus shown to be an offence against God, how much more 
serious a matter must carelessness be with regard to the Sacra- 
ments. In Confession we draw near in very truth to the feet of 
Jesus. Our souls are to be cleansed with the Precious Blood — we 
set in motion a spiritual force and energy of greater power, says 
St.. Augustine, than was needed for the creation of the world. How 
careful and devout, then, should be our preparation. We simply 
can not hope to derive any full or lasting benefit from Confession 
unless we sincerely resolve to make a serious and prayerful prepara- 
tion whenever we approach this Sacrament of Penance. No better 
resolution can be suggested to you than to follow the advice we all 
learned as children from our Catechism. We must do four things 



54 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

in order to make a good Confession: First, we must heartily pray 
for grace to make a good Confession ; secondly, we must carefully 
examine our conscience; thirdly, we must take time and care to 
make a good act of contrition ; and fourthly, we must resolve to re- 
nounce our sins and to begin a new life for the future. Thus we 
shall, whilst avoiding all exaggerated anxiety and scrupulosity, 
secure that our Confessions be free from any carelessness that 
routine or the necessary human element inherent in the Sacrament 
might otherwise cause, and that we shall not join in the presumption 
of tempting God, of which they are guilty who approach this 
august Sacrament without first preparing their soul. 

Hope, then, guards our confidence from presumption by remind- 
ing us that if we are to have our sins forgiven it can only be by our 
fulfilling certain necessary conditions. But it does something of 
more positive and deeper helpfulness than that it comes to banish 
all misgiving and despair. The devil, St. Antonius tells us, was 
once caught at the Confessional door by a holy servant of God and 
forced by him to declare his business. "I am here," he said, and 
we may imagine how reluctantly, "to make restitution. When I 
tempt a soul to sin I take away two things : I take away shame and 
I take away fear, and I come here to give back those two things. I 
give back shame and I give back fear, so that what the sinner was 
not ashamed or afraid to commit, that sinner, when he comes here, 
may be ashamed or afraid to confess." Here certainly is the cun- 
ning of the evil spirit disclosed to us. For once the unfortunate 
sinner has admitted shame or fear to a full entrance into his heart, 
he will soon find to his dismay that they have come but as fore- 
runners of that strong and awful spirit, "the dumb devil," whose 
work it is to make confession impossible and so drive the poor 
sinner to despair. Let us fear this devil and let us fear his fore- 



CONFESSION 55 

runners. Remember once a sin has been committed, the only way 
of getting rid of it is by sincere Confession. No matter what else 
is done, until that sin has been confessed it still awaits its revela- 
tion here or hereafter. A certain lady there was, as again St. An- 
tonius tells us, whose holiness of life, great austerities, abundant 
alms and frequent reception of the Sacraments had won for her 
such reputation for sanctity that when she came to die the people 
at once honored her as a saint. But, alas, for the value of human 
judgment, the- poor creature had fallen a victim to this dumb devil 
in the Confessional and had lost her soul. "Pray not to me," she 
said to one who was actually invoking her intercession, "and pray 
not for me — I am lost and in hell because I never had the courage 
to tell in Confession the sins of my wicked youth, and whilst I 
concealed those sins all other works were unavailing to win for me 
the pardon of God." Oh, then let us banish shame and fear from 
our hearts when we are making ready for Confession. Once we 
have sinned there is before God no nobler or more pleasing act than 
the humble acknowledgment of our sin ; and if that is so, why should 
we pause to think what man, even the best of them, might think 
about us. But, as a fact, what does our confessor think, what can 
he think, save just this one thing: is this poor child sorry? "Had 
we to confess to angels," says St. Chrysostom, "we might indeed 
fear that when they heard our sins, zeal to revenge the majesty of 
their offended Lord would urge them to rise in their wrath 
and smite us to our destruction." But God has purposely left the 
ministry of this Sacrament not to angels but to men — to human 
beings like ourselves, who know what it is to be tempted, how hard 
it is to resist, men who would belie every true instinct in their 
nature were they to show themselves harsh or ungentle to their 
fallen brethren, and every duty of the priestly office, were they to 



56 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

act otherwise than in complete accord with the heart of the loving 
Saviour Who had compassion on the multitude. 

It is in this Loving Heart we place our hope. We confess to 
men, it is true, but if we are wise, we shall as far as may be, forget 
their persons in their office. We shall remember them only as the 
representatives of the God we have offended, but whose voice it is 
we have heard calling us to repentance. Man must be forgotten 
now. "Against Thee only have I sinned and done evil in Thy 
sight, and to Thee acknowledge it. Behold, we come to Thee, for 
Thou art our God." And we begin our Confession by reminding 
ourselves of it all — "I confess to almighty God." 

Hope then, by showing us clearly we are dealing with a merciful 
God, will, whilst it makes us reverent and free from presumption, 
secure for us the victory over fearfulness or despair. 

A confidence founded on Faith and safeguarded by supernatural 
Hope might not help us, were it not motived by Charity, this 
it is that brings it to perfection. Love, true and sincere, for the 
agonizing Heart of Jesus is the best source of all deep and lasting 
sorrow for sin. Look at Jesus praying in the Garden before He 
suffered. His heart is in the wine-press of bitterest grief. The 
words are being fulfilled: "I have trodden the wine-press alone," 
the miracle of Cana is being renewed, the water is changed into 
wine, the deep red wine of His precious Blood. "His sweat became 
as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground" (Luke xxii, 
44). Now, why was this awful agony? How did that Blood 
flow before a blow had been struck or a wound had been inflicted? 
No single answer can of course be adequate, but let me suggest one 
to you in connection with my subject that may help us to a nearer 
sympathy with Jesus and make us resolve to get rid of sins by a 
good Confession. I say, then, that Jesus agonized not so much in 



CONFESSION 57 

fear of the sufferings and death that were then awaiting Him. No, 
His love was brave to suffer for His friends. "I am the Good 
Shepherd," He had said, "and I lay down My life for My sheep. 
No man taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of My self" 
(John x, i). And again: "Having joy set before Him, He endured 
the Cross, despising the shame" (Heb. xii, 2). No, it was not the 
pain nor the shame — these He could have borne. But a more ter- 
rible vision assailed His imagination. Hitherto He had been sus- 
tained by the thought of the victory of His Cross. "When I shall 
be lifted up," He had said, "I shall draw all things unto Me" (John 
xii, 32), this He said signifying what death He should die. Now, 
He allowed His soul to drink in the bitterness of defeat. "What 
profit is there in My Blood?" (Ps. xxix, 10). He saw how, though 
that Blood was waiting for them, to cleanse them from their sins 
in the Sacrament of Penance, men would let it lie unheeded there 
and despise it; nay, that they would profane and desecrate it by 
bad Confessions. "His Blood be upon us," rang in His ears as He 
lay there prostrate in dreadful agony and He heard that cry echoing 
through the ages. He saw that men and women — Catholics who 
did know what they were doing — would ask that that precious 
Blood should be poured upon their unrepentant hearts and that It 
would lie upon those hearts as It lay upon the hard rock on Calvary, 
crying not for pardon but for vengeance upon them. Ah, poor 
Jesus, for Him to see that the Blood He was to shed with such 
infinite love and at the cost of such fearful torment should by 
man's sinful perversity become, not their salvation, but the means 
of their damnation. "His Blood be upon us and upon our chil- 
dren." 

As you love your own soul, and above all as you love the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus, do promise your Lord to-night that, come what 



58 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

may, no devil in hell will ever have power to induce you by shame 
or fear or any other means whatever to make a bad Confession. 

No! "let us go with confidence to the throne of grace," being 
quite sure if that confidence is strengthened, guarded and prompted 
by the great virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, we shall infallibly 
find Mercy waiting for us in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 59 



VI. THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE. 

"Come to Me all you that labor and are burdened and I will refresh you. 
Take up My yoke upon you and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble 
of heart and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet and My 
burden light."— Matt, xi, 28, 30. 

SYNOPSIS.— The object of the Retreat is: (1) To get rid of sin; (2) To 
become Children of God. 

We get rid of sin by a good Confession. We become Children of God 
by acquiring the Spirit of Jesus. The virtues of that spirit are typified 
in the Vision of the Sacred Heart — by the Cross — the Thorns — the 
Wound which represent: Obedience. Restraint. Love. 

By these virtues Jesus overcomes the world : i. e., the concupiscence of 
the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh, the pride of life and selfishness 
engendered by these concupiscences. 

First He conquers the "Pride of Life" by accepting the cross of His 
Father's Will in loving obedience as shown: (1) In the Birth. (2) In the 
Hidden Life. (3) In the Public Life. (4) In the Passion and Death. 

We imitate Him: (1) By praying. (2) Doing our daily work. 
(3) Bearing our daily crosses: as Children of God and in Obedience to 
Our Father in Heaven. 

When Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and Mammon," He was 
not merely telling us a truth, He was giving us a warning, for many 
there are who try to do this thing. They profess they are serving 
God whilst almost without adverting to it they are paying court to 
the world. "These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts 
are far from Me." Now during a Retreat we can look carefully 
into this matter, we can see where we stand, or whither we are 
drifting, we can discover for ourselves whether we are serving God 
"with a perfect heart" as Scripture speaks, or only paying outward 
and, so to speak, conventional service to Him. For the best of us 
this close scrutiny can hardly be flattering, but we are not to be 



60 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

discouraged. It is God's will that we should make it, and we should 
be sure from that that He wants to help us to profit by it. When 
we have convinced ourselves of our worldliness and the sins with 
which it has burdened us, He bids us come to Him and seek His 
pardon, as we have seen, in a good Confession, "Come to Me you 
that labor and are burdened and I will refresh you." But that is 
not all. We can get rid of sins at once, but not at once, save by a 
miracle, of worldliness — the source of so many sins. One earnest 
desire, one good Confession, one week's fervent Retreat will most 
assuredly help us, but we cannot hope that it will destroy worldliness 
in our heart forever. Worldliness may be wounded; it may lie 
dormant for a while, but it is living still, perhaps only awaiting an 
opportunity to rise to its accustomed triumph in our hearts. It is 
a dread and powerful enemy, and only the strength of God can 
give us the victory over it. But Jesus longs to give us that strength. 
"Have confidence" He says to encourage us. "I have overcome the 
world." "Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me because I am 
meek and humble of heart and you shall find rest to your souls." 
From His meek and humble heart then we are to learn the virtues 
and to draw the spirit that will conquer the world. Make that spirit 
your own, and worldliness will fly from you. For the spirit of the 
world is the inheritance of our fallen nature, the concupiscence of 
the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of life, and 
the cold, hard-hearted self-centredness and self-sufficiency which 
results from indulgence in these concupiscences. Look now at the 
meek and humble Heart of Jesus as He has revealed it to us and at 
once you will see how its Spirit is able to conquer the world. For 
in that Heart thus revealed we see symbolized for us the virtues 
that constitute the Spirit of Jesus. It is surmounted by a Cross 
and there are flames of love embracing that Cross. It is encircled 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 61 

with thorns. It is pierced by a lance. These things I say symbolize 
for us the Spirit of Jesus. For what do they tell us? The Cross 
is the Will of His heavenly Father, and the flames of His love are 
loyally embracing it. That is the Obedience which is to conquer 
the pride of life. The thorns that encircle the Heart and wound it 
(for the points of thorns are stained with blood) show the restraint 
that Jesus practised "leaving us an example" that we must follow 
if we are to fight successfully against the "concupiscence of the eyes 
and the concupiscence of the flesh." And the wound on the Heart 
has a lesson of special significance. The Heart is wounded but lov- 
ing still, nay it loves the very hand that pierced it, "whilst yet we 
were sinners Christ died for us." It teaches us we must forgive 
or we shall not be forgiven, and we must keep His commandment of 
love or we shall not be reckoned amongst His disciples. "A new 
commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have 
loved you"; and "By this shall all men know that you are My dis- 
ciples if you have love one for another" (John xiii, 34, 35). That 
is the love that makes us all brethren of Jesus and Children of God 
and drives from our hearts the cold and arrogant selfishness of 
worldlings. 

This, then, is the Spirit of Jesus. The spirit of Obedience, of 
Restraint and of Brotherly Love. This spirit we must strive with- 
out ceasing to make our own. For just in proportion to our doing 
so depends our power to conquer the world, and to fit ourselves for 
Heaven. "For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be 
made conformable to the image of His Son" (Rom. viii, 29). Noth- 
ing then could be more necessary or useful for us than to study well 
the Spirit of Jesus. Let us begin then with His Obedience. That 
we have considered as typified for "us by the flames of love that rise 
from His Heart to embrace the Cross-of His Father's will. 



62 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

It would be impossible in a conference like this to cite all the 
Scripture passages that speak of the Obedience of Christ, neither 
of course is it necessary. But some I must quote to show you how 
this great virtue is an essential characteristic of the spirit of Jesus. 
And my first text shall be the great verse in the Hebrews x, 5, etc. : 
"When He cometh into the world He saith, sacrifice and oblation 
thou wouldest not, but a body thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts 
for sin did not please Thee. Then said I, behold I come. In the head 
of the book it is written of Me that I should do Thy Will, God. 
In which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus 
Christ." He is born then in obedience to His Father's will, as the 
angels sang to give "Glory to God in the Highest and on earth 
Peace to men of good will." For thirty years He is hidden in the 
workshop of Nazareth, and all we are told of Him is, "He went 
down to Nazareth and was subject to them." Once indeed is the 
veil lifted to show us Jesus acting in a way that causes trouble to 
His mother. He is lost in the Temple, but His explanation, "Did 
you not know that I must be about My Father's business ?" reveals 
to us that as then, when He caused them sorrow, so also during the 
whole of that hidden life of perfect obedience He was always about 
His Father's business and doing His Father's will. Leaving His 
home He begins his public life, but it is by the will and sanction of 
that Heavenly Father that He does so. The Heavens are opened at 
His Baptism and the Voice proclaims, "This is My beloved Son in 
Whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him." 

And as He begins so does He continue. "I came," He says, "not 
to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent me." And again, 
"The things that are pleasing to Him I do always." And yet again, 
"My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." Proving how sin- 
cerely He practised what He proclaimed. "Not in bread alone doth 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 63 

man live, but in every word that cometh from the mouth of God." 
On the night before He died, looking back upon His life, He sums 
it all up in His prayer to His Father. "I have done the Work that 
Thou gavest me to do.' , Thus He closed "in wondrous order" the 
work of His active life. He had done all at the will of His Father. 
It was over, "The night cometh wherein no man can work." But 
the end of His active work was to be the beginning of his "passive" 
work. He was now to face his terrible sufferings. And how does 
He begin? Again, by an act of Obedience. "That the world may 
know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given Me com- 
mandment, so do I, arise ; let us go hence." So saying He arises from 
the table and proceeds to the scene of His agony. Then look at Him 
as He lies prostrate in that agony and hear the prayer which dur- 
ing those three long hours breaks from His bleeding Heart. "Father, 
not my will, but Thine be done." When His disciples would rescue 
Him by force He will not have their help, for such was not His 
Father's will. "Thinkest thou," He says to Peter, "that I cannot 
ask My Father and He will give me presently more than twelve 
legions of Angels ? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that 
so it must be done?" (Matt, xxvi, 53). To Pilate, who boasted he 
had power to release Him or to put Him to death, He declares, 
"Thou shouldst not have a power against me unless it were given 
thee from above" (John xix, 11). To that power — to the will of His 
heavenly Father — He bows in humble obedience. "The chalice 
which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" (John xviii, 
11). And to the last drop does He drain that cup of bitterness, 
until He could cry, "It is consummated." And note, by a miracle 
of power the very parting with life is in this God-made man an act 
of positive Obedience. He does not merely, as the martyrs do, 
allow His executioners to take it. No, but by an exercise of divine 



64 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

power He yields His soul Himself to God. "Father, into Thy hands 
I commend My spirit," and saying this He gave up the ghost (Luke 
xxiii, 46). With man death is the consummation of weakness. "It 
is not in man's power to stop the spirit, neither hath he power in 
the day of death" (Eccles. viii, 8). But with Jesus it is otherwise. 
His death is an act of power. It is with a loud cry, a cry of strength 
and vigor that He yields His soul to God. So grand and striking 
a manifestation of more than human might is it that the pagan sol- 
dier sees in it at once a convincing proof of our Lord's divinity. 
"And the centurion who stood over against him, seeing that crying out 
in this manner He had given up the ghost, said, "Indeed this man was 
the Son of God" (Mark xv, 39). Even in the very act of dying then 
He is simply obedient to His Father's will. "Therefore doth My 
Father love Me," He had said, "because I lay down My life that I 
may take it up again. No man taketh it away from Me, but I lay 
it down of Myself and I have power to lay it down and I have 
power to take it up again. This commandment have I received from 
My Father" (John x, 17-8). 

From first to last then, in His birth as in His death, in His hidden 
life, His public life or His suffering life, Jesus is everywhere and 
always from the crib to the Cross obedient to the will of His Father. 
It is thus He conquers for us the Pride of life, for the essence of 
the malice of sin is rebellious pride. It was manifest in Heaven 
when "Lucifer said in his heart, I will exalt my throne above the 
stars of God — I will become as most High" (Is. xiv, 13, 14). And 
with this venom did the serpent infect our first parents, "You shall 
become as God, knowing good and evil." That he might exalt him- 
self and become as God, man sinned by disobedience. And to atone 
for that sin the second Person of the ever adorable Trinity humbled 
Himself and became man and was obedient unto death, even the 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 65 

death of the Cross. Jesus is the Truth, and His whole life wit- 
nesses to it — the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And the 
whole attitude of the sinner is a lie in the face of Heaven. It pro- 
claims that God is not worthy of service and does not merit our 
love. That is the Pride of life. But every word and deed of Jesus 
preaches to us with intensest conviction. "The Lord thy God shalt 
thou adore and Him only shalt thou serve. ,, And serve with the 
loving service of confiding filial devotion. "For this was I born," 
said Jesus to Pontius Pilate, and the occasion gives sublime emphasis 
to his words, "for this came I into the world that I might give tes- 
timony of the Truth." Surely now we can see how it is impossible 
to serve God and Mammon. How he that is not with Jesus must 
of necessity be against Him. Look then at the Sacred Heart teach- 
ing its lesson to you and make your resolution. See the flames of 
the loyal love of Jesus ardently embracing the will of God as typified 
by that Cross, and then hear the great words of St. Paul, "Let this 
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus Who, being in the 
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied 
Himself taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness 
of men and in habit found as a man. He humbled Himself becom- 
ing obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" (Phil, ii, 5-8). 

Yes, let that mind be in you, the spirit of humble obedience in all 
things to the will of God. For such is the mind, the spirit of Jesus, 
and unless we have His spirit we are none of His. Now to bring 
these thoughts practically home to ourselves, let us see how this 
spirit of a child of God, bearing witness to the truth of the father- 
hood of God, should show itself in our daily lives. 

Well, first our prayers and spiritual duties should of course be 
full of this spirit. Our favorite prayer should be the prayer Jesus 
has taught us ; "The Our Father." Its great effect on our souls is 



66 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

to remind us "we have not here a lasting city, but we are looking 
for one that is to come," where God our Father is king and rules 
in peace for evermore. "Beware," said our Lord to His disciples, "of 
the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." These Pharisees 
prayed, they fasted, they gave alms — the three eminent good works 
as our catechism tells us, but yet they pleased not God. For they 
had nothing of the Spirit of a child of God, and "unless you become 
as children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." They 
did their works to be seen by men, and from men they received the 
praise they sought and Jesus has nothing further to give them. 
"They have received their reward," our Lord says, when they ap- 
peal to Him for their recompense they will be disappointed; for 
He says, as we have seen, He will dismiss them with the words, 
"Amen, Amen, I say to you I know you not." Their life was not the 
flagrant lie of open sin — but the hypocrisy of insincerity in the 
service of God. "These people honor Me with their lips, but their 
hearts are far from Me." They were trying to serve two masters — 
that is, to do what Jesus tells us is impossible. We need not sup- 
pose that they were conscious hypocrites — that they made a pre- 
tence of holiness and were fully aware it was only a pretence. 
No; it is quite true they deceived others; but they had begun by 
deceiving themselves. They were blind, our Lord says. He does 
not indeed excuse their blindness; but He does acknowledge it, 
and thereby distinguishes it from the clear-sighted, calculated de- 
ceitfulness of deliberately conscious hypocrisy. But though it is 
better than the worst, it was still bad enough to deprive the 
Pharisees of all the merit of their really good works, and danger- 
ous enough to cause our Lord to warn His disciples against it. 
"Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." And 
what He says to them He says to all. You and I must be on our 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 67 

guard against this subtle leaven that can insinuate itself into our 
holiest works and, by prevailing on us to seek in them the praise, 
or, at least, the attention of others, rob them of that good intention 
which alone can recommend them to the favor of God. Our 
Lord's advice to us is to pray, fast and give alms as far as we 
can manage it, in secret! "And your Father who seeth in the 
secret will reward you" (Matt, vi, 6). Then when we have made 
sure of our good intention, should occasion arise we need not fear 
to do our good works before others — for then it will but redound 
to the glory of God. So let your light shine before men that they 
may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in 
heaven (Matt, v, 16). And thus shall we with Jesus give testimony 
of the truth that God is a loving Father worthy of the most de- 
voted service of loyal and filial hearts. 

If then in our strictly spiritual works we are thoroughly sincere 
in seeking only to please God, we may be quite sure His blessing 
will rest upon all the actions of our everyday life. He will think 
of us when perhaps we are not thinking directly of Him. Our 
good intention, unless withdrawn by sin, will persevere through the 
day and make our work an obedience and a prayer. In her office 
at Prime, Holy Church each morning invokes God's blessing on 
the work of all her children. "May the splendor of the Lord our 
God shine upon us : and the 'works' of our hands do Thou direct." 
No matter how lowly or menial the task, the Church knows that if 
it be done to please God, the unseen splendor of Heaven will shine 
upon it. And while she prays for help to do "our various works" 
well, she adds special request that "the work" should be directed — 
that is, the work that perseveres through all the other works, and 
gives them value in the eyes of God, the work, namely, of the good 
intention. Let that persevere and we are leading lives in imitation 



68 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

of Christ; sustained by His example, strengthened by His spirit; 
lives that proclaim that we are children of God. 

In that spirit the life of the poorest and meanest of God's serv- 
ants is grand and noble before the angels of Heaven. And in that 
spirit the trials and contradictions and disappointments of life 
become, as Father Faber would call them, "the raw material of 
our future glory." The eye of faith recognizes them as crosses 
sent by our loving Father to see if we can suffer for Him as 
Christ has suffered for us. So many good people have quite mis- 
taken notions about crosses! They understand that they are signs 
of God's love. They are resolved in prayer time to accept them 
willingly; yet even though they are actually on the lookout for 
them, they miss them somehow when they do come. The fault is 
that they cannot see wood for trees. They expect something big 
and striking, something they imagine themselves bearing with the 
fortitude of a martyr — if it only would come! But it does not 
come; and the little annoyances and troubles that do come, they 
make no good of it at all. These things seem to them "not to 
count" ; and they allow themselves to get irritated and bad tem- 
pered over them as though such trifles did not really matter, where- 
as it is just in bearing these pinpricks and every-day annoyances 
with cheerful resignation that we show ourselves God's children, 
and acquire the spirit of Jesus. "If any one will come after Me, 
let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me" 
(Luke ix, 23), and it is that word daily that I should like here to 
emphasize. St. Teresa and her little brother once on a time, we 
are told, went off hand in hand, when they were children, to seek 
out the Moors, that they might be martyred for Christ. Luckily, 
their uncle met them and sent them home, before they came to 
grief. We see plainly enough that God did not intend that the 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST: OBEDIENCE 69 

big cross of martyrdom should be theirs; even though they gen- 
erously and sincerely desired it. It would be well if we were always 
as wise in our own case. It is the occasional pinch of poverty, 
the irritation or shame arising from the sin or folly of this or that 
relative or friend, the weariness of sickness of some chronic in- 
valid at home, or the troubles at work, a fault-finding, nagging 
master or mistress; a jealous or suspicious companion, or a lying 
neighbor. It is in these things that you can find the cross that 
Jesus wants you to bear. And it is just because it is not of your 
own seeking that you show yourself a child of God when "without 
letting all the world know about it," you receive that trial, disap- 
pointment or injustice in silent and loving resignation to His holy 

will : 

Were it not better to lie still, 

Let Him strike home and bless the rod, 
Never so safe as when our will 

Yield, undiscerned by all but God. [Keble.] 

Not safe merely, but happy; provided we "yield" without reluc- 
tance or complaint but with cheerful acquiescence and joy — for 
the "Lord loveth a cheerful giver," and it is His spirit "Who re- 
joiced as a giant to run his way." Crosses we must have; they 
are the passport to Heaven — "No cross, no crown" — and they alone 
can be secure of happiness here below who find their happiness in 
bearing their cross. To such God gives "a hidden manna." "They 
taste and see how sweet is the Lord." And though indeed they 
have the cross ; yet, like the Apostles, "they rejoice to be counted 
worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus" (Acts v, 41). The 
world sees their cross, says St. Bernard ; it does not see the sweet- 
ness that God gives to those who suffer with Him. "Crucem 
vident — unctionem non vident." 

To bear our cross daily then— to live in the presence of God — to 



7 o A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

do our good works to please our Father Who is in heaven : this is to 
take upon ourselves the yoke of Christ, to grow in the likeness 
of Jesus, and to live as a child of God. 

It is, in a word, to do what our Lord would have us do when He 
says to us : "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me because I 
am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls." 
For My yoke is sweet and My burden light. 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 7* 

VII. THE SPIRIT OF JESUS : RESTRAINT OF THE 
CONCUPISCENCE OF THE EYES 



"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."— 
Matt. v. 3. 

SYNOPSIS. — i. The thorns typify the Restraint of Jesus which teaches v.s 
to mortify the Concupiscence of the Eyes and the Concupiscence of the 
Flesh. 

2. "Concupiscence of the Eyes" explained. 

3. Jesus teaches us to overcome it by His detachment from the goods 
and esteem of the world. 

(a) In His birth. 

(b) In His hidden life. 

(c) In His public life. 

(d) In His death and burial. 

Let us, as the early Christians did, practically appreciate our Lord's 
warning, for the extreme remedy implies the presence of an extreme evil. 

The greatness of the evil of worldliness shown in this: 

i. That it was the principal cause of the rejection of Jesus by the 
Pharisees. 

2. That Judas was won by it to betray our Lord. 

The insidious ness of it shown: 

i. In the failure of the rich man to follow his vocation. 

2. In the surprise of the Apostles about our Lord's teaching with re- 
gard to riches. 

Our Lord's warning by example and precept especially needful for us — 
who live in a rich country which regards its prosperity as a sign of the 
favor of God. 

The flames of love embracing the Cross that surmounts the Sacred 
Heart teach us, then, as we have seen, the Obedience of Jesus in 
accepting His Father's Will. This is the victory that overcomes 
the "pride of life." Now we are to consider the thorns that en- 
circle the Heart and press it tight in their cruel grasp. They teach 
us the Restraint we must practise to conquer the Concupiscence of 
the Eyes and the Concupiscence of the Flesh. These are the natural 



72 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

inclinations of our fallen nature which, says our Catechism, "if 
not corrected by self-denial will certainly carry us to Hell." Now 
how are we to practise this self-denial or Restraint? Again let 
us look at Jesus. He has overcome the world for us. And first 
we shall consider Him gaining the victory over the Concupiscence 
of the Eyes. 

It is well for us "to keep looking at Him," as St. Teresa used 
to advise her nuns. He has become man in order that we might 
do so. It is one of the great purposes of the Incarnation. He 
might have taught us by the message of Prophet or Apostle the 
way to heaven. But He has done infinitely more for us. He has 
trodden the way Himself, that we might have clearer guidance and 
greater confidence in His compassion and desire to help us. "Have 
confidence I have overcome the world" (John xvi, 33). He knows 
what is in man. He is the "God that scrutinizes the reins and the 
heart" (Ps. vii, 10), and He knows how that heart of man suc- 
cumbs to the "bewitching vanity." It is through our eyes the 
world wins its way into our souls. It does not reason or argue 
with us. It simply shows itself. It displays its riches, its power, 
its strength, its grandeur, and as we gaze the conclusion steals 
upon us "surely these things are enough for me" — what more can 
my soul have, or even desire? Here is all the happiness I seek. 
The Concupiscence of the Eyes is eagerly excited: "These will I 
give thee," whispers the prince of this world, "if falling down 
thou wilt adore me." Jesus, I say, has anticipated that moment 
of crisis for the soul. He has put Himself, as Bishop Hedley tells 
us, in competition with the world for the possession of the heart of 
man, "The Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us." He 
is not a Truth, a system, a Dogma. He is a living Reality, a 
human being like ourselves. And He, like the world, appeals to our 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 73 

hearts through our eyes. The silent figure of Jesus, the loving 
Saviour, Who, though Lord of all, became for our sakes "the poor 
Man of Nazareth," can fill our imaginations, take possession of 
our hearts and strengthen our souls against all the solicitations 
of the world's attractions. "Have confidence I have overcome the 
world." Thus did the Faith of the poor handful of Christians 
triumph in the beginning. They "sanctified the Lord Christ in their 
hearts" (I Pet. iii, 15), and armed themselves with the power 
of His Might. The image of Jesus lived by Faith in their souls, 
and the joy of that possession made them despise the tainted joys 
of earth. "Having nothing they possessed all things." For they 
possessed Jesus. "Whom not having seen you love," says St. Peter 
to them, with wistful praise as if mindful of his own transgression, 
"in whom though now you see Him, not yet believing you rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and glorified" (I Pet. i, 8). Over such hearts 
the world had no power to tempt from their allegiance. So let it 
be with us. The same Jesus is here in the Tabernacle. Ask Him 
now for grace to look at Him, that His Kingdom may come and 
drive the kingdom of the world from your hearts. 

"Jesus began to do and to teach," says the sacred text (Acts i, 1). 
To do first and to teach afterwards. He practised poverty before 
He required it of others. Think first then how severe was the 
Poverty he practised. He is born in a stable. And why? Be- 
cause "there was no room for them in the inn." Not only is He 
poor : so utterly poor that none in this world could be poorer, but 
outcast as well. No woman but can find some human habitation, 
some poor corner for shelter in a friend's or neighbor's house aj 
such a crisis as Mary's. But not so when Jesus was born. "He 
came unto his own and his own received Him not." And so Mary 
"brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him up in swaddling 



74 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for 
them in the inn" (Luke ii, 7). "And this shall be a sign unto you. 
You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid 
in a manger" (Luke ii, 2). The sign that the Lover of Poverty 
was born into this world, to help men to conquer the Concupiscence 
of the Eyes. 

He is born poor and despised: and poor and despised does He 
live. He is for thirty years nothing more or less than a son of 
a workingman. They have good times maybe when "the work is 
going," but now and again things are so slack that, as a pious tradi- 
tion tells us, Jesus had to go to a neighbor to beg for bread. And 
He is the God-made Man ! And creatures that He has made would 
sometimes rather die (as they have done), than sink themselves 
so low as to beg for bread. Only occasionally did it happen at 
Nazareth. But when He leaves His home, then during the whole 
three years of His public life, He lives entirely on alms. And dur- 
ing that time, too, He could say of Himself, "The foxes have 
holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where 
to lay his head" (Matt, viii, 20). He has no roof to shelter Him, 
and He depends on alms for His daily bread. So does He go 
through life. And at His death He is stripped of His very gar- 
ments. For three long hours He, the despised and rejected of 
men, is held up crucified to the scoffs and derision of an impious 
rabble, and then laid at last to rest in another man's sepulchre. 
What more could Jesus do to show us His love for Poverty. 
"Poverty took His hand as He lay in the crib at Bethlehem," says 
St. Bernard, "and walked with Him step by step of His journey 
through life, and did not leave Him till it left Him stripped of 
all things on the Cross of Calvary." And how can we flatter our- 
selves that we have His Spirit if we allow the Concupiscence of the 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 75 

Eyes to lure us on to desire the good of earth unduly, and to set 
store by the esteem, popularity or influence which riches bring to 
men? His life of poverty will have been lived in vain for us. 
And yet it was for us He lived it. "You know the grace of Jesus 
Christ," says St. Paul; "how being rich for your sakes He became 
poor that by His poverty you might be rich" (II Cor. viii, 9). The 
early Christians did know that grace. They understood the les- 
son He taught them. They knew how the devil had tempted Him, 
had shown Him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, 
saying : "All these I will give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore 
me"; and how He had conquered by the words: "The Lord thy 
God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt, iv, 
8-10). And that had been enough for them. They knew the grace 
of Jesus Christ. They saw that if they were to follow in His foot- 
steps they, too, must understand that they were here to practise 
detachment from the goods of this world, that they had not here 
a lasting city, but they were on earth to witness, as Christ did be- 
fore Pontius Pilate, to this great truth that they were the children 
of God and not the worshippers of Mammon. 

And my dear children, is not this lesson for us, too? "He be- 
came poor for your sakes." Of Himself He could say, "The 
Prince of this world cometh and in Me he hath not anything." 
The possession of all the kingdoms of this world had no allure- 
ment for Him. In Him there was no concupiscence. Having no 
concupiscence, there was no need for the restraint of poverty. It 
was for your sakes that He became poor. 

Now do you know the grace of Jesus Christ as the early Chris- 
tians did. Have you learned His lesson ? Surely we shall have much 
to answer for if the Son of God bore such extreme poverty for our 
sakes and we have not profited by it. We may not be called upon 



76 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

to endure actual want as He did, but the very least we can do, 
is at any rate to learn that there must be some secret-hidden dan- 
ger in riches, and something very pleasing to God in poverty. 
Reason enlightened by Faith must recognize that that evil must 
indeed be great which in the wisdom of God demanded so drastic 
a remedy for its cure as the poverty of Jesus. And do not the 
Gospels furnish us with the most convincing proof of the great- 
ness of this evil? Is it not to it, more than to any other single 
cause that the greatest sin the world has witnessed — the cruci- 
fixion of the God-made Man — is directly due. The Jews rejected 
Christ, and Judas betrayed Him principally through love of money 
and the things of the world, i. e. through the Concupiscence of the 
Eyes. When He was born the priests could tell the Magi where 
to seek Him. They knew that well enough. But they would not 
act upon that knowledge themselves. No, their worldliness pre- 
vented them. They had no welcome for their Messiah, when to 
welcome Him meant to lose the friendship of their earthly King. 
And so it was that "Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him." 
Again His poverty and obscurity were to them a stumbling-block 
in the way of accepting His doctrine. "Is not this the carpenter's 
son" (Matt, xiii, 55). "Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and 
mother we know" (John vi, 42), was their one great argument 
against Him. And at the end it was worldliness that decided 
the hesitating Pilate and brought the mock trial to a speedy con- 
clusion. "If thou release this man thou art no friend of Caesar" 
(John xix, 12). "Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests 
answered : We have no king but Caesar. Then, therefore, he de- 
livered Him to them to be crucified" (John xix, 15). 

Quite clearly then worldliness or the Concupiscence of the Eyes 
was the great cause of the rejection of Christ by the Jews, and 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 77 

just as clearly was it the cause of his betrayal by Judas. No need 
to labor this point. The Gospel clearly tells us, and the avaricious- 
ness of Judas has passed into a proverb. 

Now the obvious question for us is this: Does my fear of this 
evil bear any proportion to the greatness of the danger as revealed 
in the perfidy of the Jews or the treachery of Judas ? Is it an ade- 
quate answer to the warning given me by the whole life of Jesus 
or by the words of the Apostle : "The desire of money is the root 
of all evils" (I Tim. vi, 10). It is not a fair reply to say, "Thank 
God I am not a Pharisee; still less am I a Judas. I have no 
temptation to act as they did" — for the warning is not so much 
against their acts as against their spirit. "Beware of the leaven of 
the Pharisees." And that leaven, let us be quite sure of it, can creep 
into the holiest souls and the best dispositions. The Gospels them- 
selves furnish us with a most striking illustration of this (Matt. 10, 
Mark 10, Luke 18). A man, we are told, so eager for his soul's 
salvation that he came running to Jesus, threw himself at our 
Lord's feet saying, "Good Master, what must I do to possess 
Eternal Life." Jesus tells him to keep the Commandments and 
enumerates them. "All these," says the man, "I have kept from 
my youth." Then Jesus looked on him and loved him. "If thou 
wouldst be perfect," He says, "go, sell what thou hast and give 
to the poor, and come, follow Me." And the young man is struck 
sad at this saying and goes sorrowfully away — "for he had great 
possessions." 

There is no escaping the significance of this incident. The 
love of riches — worldliness — the leaven of the Pharisees can eat 
its way like a canker into the noblest hearts and ruin the most 
promising aspirations. Who can promise himself security when 
such a one fell? Here is everything one would think that could 



78 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

win for that soul a spiritual victory. He had borne the yoke from 
his youth, he had kept all God's Commandments, he had resisted 
the temptations peculiar to his age and rank; and now he comes 
to the Saviour full of enthusiastic desire to do all that may be 
asked of him. He has no doubt about his Messiah, and the voca- 
tion is clear and unmistakable. A very special grace is offered 
him, too. Jesus looks on him and loves him. But that loving look, 
that gracious call that had brought the grace of conversion to 
the Apostles, who at that moment surrounded Him, were powerless, 
it would seem, against the spirit of worldliness in this young man's 
heart. There before him were men who had nobly done what he 
was asked to do. Jesus Himself, "though rich, had become poor 
for his sake," the Apostles "had left all things and had followed 
Him." The call of Jesus was the loving answer to his own gen- 
erous challenge. His attitude in his enthusiastic running to Jesus 
was exactly that of the psalmist: "Judge me, O Lord, for I have 
walked in my innocence, and I have put my trust in the Lord and 
shall not be weakened. Prove me, O Lord, and try me — for thy 
mercy is before my eyes and I am well pleased with Thy truth" 
(Ps. 25). Could there be a better disposition? Could there be a 
brighter promise? But alas for the awful and complete failure. 
"Can you drink of the chalice which I drink of," had been prac- 
tically our Lord's sweet invitation to him. And he, like a coward, 
had shrunk shamefacedly away. Failing when the great prize of 
Eternal life was actually within his grasp ; held out to him by the en- 
couraging hand of his Saviour, and the love of Jesus, the example of 
the Apostles and the claims of his own honor, all urging him to take 
it. Why did he fail? The text is clear: "Who being struck at 
that saying went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions" 
(Mark x, 22). 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 79 

There is the reason. Not because he was proud of his pos- 
sessions, not because he spent his substance living riotously, not 
because he was avaricious, but simply because he had these great 
possessions. Though he had led a blameless life and served God 
faithfully, yet without his knowing it the Concupiscence of the 
Eyes had wasted his soul, and robbed it of all spiritual strength. 
Without his knowing it the great possessions had taken the place 
of God in his heart, and he had come to rely on them instead of 
upon the One Eternal Stay of the immortal soul. He did not 
know the state of that soul of his, and so in his mercy Jesus reveals 
it to him. Had he known he would not have come with such en- 
thusiastic love to the Saviour as though to take the Kingdom of 
Heaven by storm. Had he known it, it would not have caused 
him the keen, bitter sorrow it did to find that he could not obey 
his Master's call, and that there was still one thing wanting to 
him. "What a warning for us. He who thought himself to stand 
so securely at the day of trial falls miserably, not knowing that 
the Lord had departed from him" (Judges xvi, 20). This is the 
lesson for us then, that the Concupiscence of the Eyes is a danger 
for the very best amongst us. Whether we have money, or too 
keenly desire it, that treacherous evil within us can little by little 
open the door of our hearts to Mammon and deliver to him the 
keys of that citadel where God alone should reign. 

But should you think that I am carrying this lesson too far, let 
me quote you our Lord's own comment on this sad scene: 

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, Amen I say to you that a 
rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And 
again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the 
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven." And when they had heard this the disciples were very 



80 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

much astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" And Jesus 
beholding, said to them, "With men this is impossible; but with 
God all things are possible." 

It is impossible — that is the simple Word of Christ ; and no word of 
man can exaggerate it — impossible without the help of God to have 
riches and not to depend on them. A man may be rich without 
being a drunkard or a profligate, but a man cannot of his own 
power be rich and not trust to his riches. That he does not be- 
lieve this himself is no proof that our Lord's words are untrue. 
Let him be wise and take our Lord's words on faith, if in no other 
way, and pray for the help he most surely needs, lest an experience 
like that of the young man in the Gospel open his eyes, when too 
late, to the ruined state of his soul. "Woe to you that are rich 
for you have your consolation" (Luke vi, 24). That is the reason 
of their condemnation — they have their consolation. That is they 
have their desires fulfilled, they want for nothing. They can do 
without God. They have their daily bread without praying for it. 
They come at last to fall down and adore the prince of this world 
and cease to witness to the truth. "The Lord thy God shalt thou 
adore and Him only shalt thou serve." 

Thus then does Christ, both by example and precept, teach us 
what we should never have learned of ourselves, that there is in the 
possession of riches a danger so great and subtle, that it can 
little by little ruin our spiritual life without our being conscious of it. 

But now the Apostles, by the question they ask our Lord, teach 
us another lesson. "Who then shall be saved?" they say in as- 
tonishment, when our Lord had declared that the rich would 
hardly enter the Kingdom of Heaven. For that question shows us 
clearly that in their judgment the rich had the best right to the 
Kingdom of Heaven. Now I want to call your attention to this, 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 81 

for that state of mind is not unknown here, though, of course, 
there is infinitely less excuse for it now. The Apostles before 
our Lord's coming had had bad teachers. The Pharisees, Our Lord 
said, were blind guides. Their worldliness had blinded them to 
heavenly things, and the heart of the people had grown gross. As 
God had allowed them divorce on account of the hardness of their 
hearts (Matt, xix, 8), so had He at times promised them earthly 
rewards for faithfulness in his service. But the scribes and 
Pharisees — the teachers of the people fixing their minds only on 
these earthy things and substituting for the plain word of God, 
the doctrines and commandments of men (Matt, xv, 9), and thus 
giving a low and material interpretation of all the spiritual promises, 
had come to regard riches as a sign of God's favor and poverty 
as a sign of His wrath. And so they taught the people. Hence 
the astonishment of the disciples at our Lord's new doctrines, as it 
seemed to them, and hence the question they asked Him. They 
are hardly to be blamed for it. They but gave expression to the 
popular sentiment of those they lived amongst and to lessons they 
had learned from their teachers. But it does show the danger of a 
wrong public opinion and the need of our Lord's warning "to 
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." 

Now I say what was a danger for the disciples is peculiarly a 
danger for you living here in this country. Worldliness is every- 
where, but in no country perhaps has it assumed so religious and 
Pharisaical an aspect, and in none therefore is its danger so threaten- 
ing for the good. 

If riches were a mark of God's love, surely Jesus would have 
been rich; and if poverty were a sign of reprobation, Jesus would 
not have embraced it. But He became poor for your sakes, that by 
by His poverty you might be rich. Alms-giving, Social-reform, 



82 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Slumming, are all excellent, but if they are done by those "who 
sound a trumpet before them," then it is pharisaical hypocrisy to 
call it religion. Men get their reward for that here, in votes and 
popular applause, and Christ knows them not. The almsgiving He 
praised was that of the woman who gave all she possessed and who 
like Himself became poor. This was the spirit of the early Chris- 
tians who through love of Christ's poverty became poor themselves 
and shared what they had in common. You are not called upon 
to imitate Christ in this perfection of poverty. But you must 
have the spirit to admire. You must learn the lesson that the 
world's view on this point, even when couched in religious terms, 
is radically wrong and very dangerous. It tends to the worship 
of Mammon and dependence on Mammon, just as poverty makes 
us feel our dependence on our Father Who is in heaven. Therein 
lies the blessedness of the poor in spirit — they confess God, while 
the rich "witness to Mammon." If by prayer we acquire that 
spirit of acknowledging that what we have received, we have re- 
ceived from Him; and do not glory as though we have not re- 
ceived, but acknowledge that "the Lord has given and the Lord 
may take away": then, though our whole life be taken up in the 
winning of wages, or even if riches should abound and we dwell 
in the midst of plenty, we need fear no evil for we shall have 
learned the spirit of Jesus. The thorns that surround His Heart 
will have taught us detachment and the mortification of the Con- 
cupiscence of the Eyes, and our lives will witness to the truth that 
we are children of God and not the worshippers of Mammon. 
This is in fine the spirit urged upon us by the grand words of the 
Apostle with which I shall conclude: 

"We brought nothing into this world and certainly we can carry 
nothing out. But having food and wherewith to be clothed, with 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 83 

these we are content. For they that will become rich fall into 
temptations and into the snare of the devil and into many un- 
profitable and hurtful desires which drown men into destruction 
and perdition. For the desire of money is the root of all evils — 
which some coveting have erred from the faith, and entangled them- 
selves in many sorrows. But thou — fly these things. Fight the 
good fight of faith; lay hold on Eternal Life whereunto thou art 
called and hast confessed a good Confession before many wit- 
nesses. I charge thee before God and before Christ Jesus, who 
gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, a good Confession, that thou 
keep the Commandment of God without spot, blameless unto the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen (I Tim. vi, 7-14). 



84 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 



VIII. THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: RESTRAINT OF THE 
CONCUPISCENCE OF THE FLESH 

"Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God." — Matt, v, 8. 

SYNOPSIS. — I. The thorns teach us the mortification of the concupiscence 
of the flesh. 

II. The greatness of the danger of the concupiscence of the flesh. 

III. Jesus' love of Chastity. — He helps us i) by His example; 2) by 
giving us Mary. 

IV. The Vision of Our Lady of Lourdes teaches us; 

1) To love Chastity — by the beauty of the vision of Mary. 

2) To pray — by the clasped hands. 

3) To mortify ourselves — by the Rock. 

4) By the words of Mary; 

a) thankfulness — which includes humility and joy for those 
who have not fallen. 

b) xove — which is the price of pardon for those who have. 

The thorns around the Sacred Heart then teach us that the spirit 
of detachment from the riches of this world is essential to the 
Spirit of Jesus. "We cannot serve two Masters"; and so, to be 
loyal to God we must resolutely renounce the service of Mammon. 
We are to keep ourselves as "strangers and pilgrims in this world," 
remembering "we have not here a lasting city but we look for one 
that is to come." 

But these thorns speak to us of another restraint to which I would 
now call your attention — the restraint of the carnal appetite — "the 
concupiscence of the flesh." The detachment of the Sacred Heart 
from the pleasures of the world is even more pressingly urgent 
upon us, and at the same time far more difficult to practise, than 
the detachment from the world's riches. For it would seem as 
though sensuality had eaten its way into the very heart of our cor- 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 85 

rupt nature and had made itself essential to fallen man. Does not 
man make this the excuse for his excesses: "I cannot help my 
nature" — or, more blasphemously still — "Why has God made me 
thus?" Man is indeed of a composite nature — part angel and 
part animal — and it was God's design that man in his probation 
should make the angelic supreme — victorious over what in him was 
animal, and thereby should fit himself for the company of Angels 
hereafter. 

"O Lord, our Lord," cries the Psalmist, "how wonderful is Thy 
name in the whole earth! What is man that Thou art mindful 
of him — or the son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou hast 
made him a little less than the Angels, Thou hast crowned him 
with glory and honor and has set him above the works 
of Thy hands. The beasts of the field and the birds of the 
air and the fishes of the sea, Thou hast made subject to him." 
Ps. 8.) Thus did God make man. "And in the beginning man's 
heart was right" ; and as he ruled the external world so did he rule 
the interior world of his nature by his enlightened reason: and 
bowed that reason in submission to God. He was "clean of heart," 
and so "he saw God" and held mysterious converse with Him in 
the Garden of Eden. But alas, he fell. "The woman saw that the 
tree was good to eat and fair to the eyes and delightful to behold, 
and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her hus- 
band who did eat." Thus were our first parents finally conquered 
by what was sensual and animal within them. And God fittingly 
punished them by clothing them in the skins of beasts and driving 
them out of Paradise. "Man when he was in honor did not under- 
stand: he is compared to senseless beasts and is become like to 
them" (Ps. 48, 13). 

Once this dread evil of sensuality had gained the upper hand 



86 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

in the heart of man, "all flesh corrupted its way," and was borne 
helplessly through nameless abominations down the steep path that 
leads to eternal ruin. God alone could save the work of His hands 
from utter destruction : and in His Wisdom He planned and in His 
power and love He wrought the means of our salvation: — 

O loving wisdom of our God, 

When all was sin and shame, 
A second Adam to the fight 

And to the rescue came. 

O wisest love, that flesh and blood 

Which did in Adam fail 
Should strive afresh against their foe 

Should strive and should prevail. 

(Newman.) 

Yes, the Eternal Son of God bent the Heavens and came down 
to earth, was born in a stable and died upon the Cross not merely 
to redeem us — to pay the price of our ransom, but as the second 
Adam, as flesh and blood, to teach us human beings how to fight 
and how to conquer this dread enemy of our nature and of our 
souls. He practised Chastity in the heroic degree of Virginity to 
lead our hearts to the love of this virtue. Virginity is not a com- 
mand but a counsel which He bids us take if we are able; but 
Chastity we must have if we are to have part or lot with Jesus. 
In this world and in Heaven He is attended by virgins to mark 
His special predilection for this lovely virtue. His mother by a 
marvellous miracle is the immaculate virgin, St. Joseph his foster- 
father, St. John his precursor, and St. John, the beloved disciple, 
— His chosen body guard here are all virgins. And in Heaven 
St. John tells us, it is the Choir of Virgins who follow the Lamb 
whithersoever He goeth and to whom it is given to sing the new 
Canticle. No one can doubt, then, that this virtue is very dear to 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 87 

the Sacred Heart or that Chastity is essentially necessary to us if 
we are to acquire any share in the Spirit of Jesus. 

But Jesus, knowing how difficult is the practice of this virtue 
to our corrupt nature and yet how essentially necessary, has left us 
a very special source of help and strength in the protection of His 
Immaculate Virgin Mother. I want to ask you, then, you especially 
who love to call yourselves Children of Mary, to look on her 
whom God has given you as your great help in this most difficult 
virtue. 

In these days, when the unregenerate heart of the world is 
not only, as it ever was, steeped in impurity, but, moreover, with 
even pagan shamelessness defends and even advocates its corrup- 
tions, Divine Providence has in the apparition at Lourdes recalled to 
men's minds the sweet vision of her whom even at the fall of man He 
had already predestined to crush the serpent's head. To her especially 
would He have us go in our great misery, and after the Blessed 
Sacrament it is from her most of all He would have us seek secure 
victory in our dread conflicts. We not only allow, but insist, that our 
nature is fallen and corrupt, and that man cannot of his own power 
hope to triumph over the flesh. Jesus Himself has said so : "Without 
Me you can do nothing." But surely it is man's own fault if he 
is without the help of Jesus. Who but the sinner himself is to 
blame if, blasphemously deriding the gracious source of strength 
which Jesus offers to him, he engage recklessly in the conflict only 
to perish miserably by the way ? Let us, at any rate, dear children, 
"Behold our Mother" and see in her "Our life, our sweetness, and 
our hope." 

It is over sixty years ago since the apparitions at Lourdes took 
place, but annual Pilgrimages that in the aggregate number more 
than a million pilgrims testify how fresh and living and universal 



83 A RETREAT FOR WOMEX IN BUSINESS 

is the grateful memory of our Lady's goodness even to the present 
hour. Thus does the great Catholic world year by year honor and 
venerate her whom the Eternal King Himself has so delighted to 
honor. And it is right and fitting that we should look upon her 
now, and try to gain from the vision itself, regarded with the eye of 
Faith, some practical lessons for our guidance in the practice of 
our Lady's favorite virtue. You know the picture of her appari- 
tion well, and you can easily recall it to your mind. You see our 
Lady there as a youthful maiden clothed in a garment of spotless 
white, intensified by the deep blue of her girdle. She is standing 
on the rock above the entrance to the grotto. Her hands are 
clasped in prayer, and her eyes fixed, in an ecstacy of thankfulness, 
on God in Heaven whilst she proclaims the privilege He has be- 
stowed upon her — "I am the Immaculate Conception" — a ravishing 
vision of Chastity of transcending loveliness. Would that, when 
temptation comes to us, we had ever the grace to recall it to our 
minds. Surely the foul fiend of impurity would be routed and put 
to flight by the very image in our minds of that beauteous apparition. 
But now let us see what are the lessons that Our Lady here 
teaches us. The first is surely the loveliness of Chastity. Alary is 
the very personification of Chastity : and Mary, as St. Bernardine 
calls her, is the "Ravisher of Hearts." Even the hoary bigotry of 
Protestantism has melted away in her sweet presence, and poet 
after poet has sung her praise. One has even called her "Our 
tainted nature's solitary boast" (Wordsworth). But what men see, 
even with a poet's ken, is, after all, but the faint reflection of the 
beauty of her soul — "The Beauty of the King's daughter is within." 
It was that hidden beauty that, as the Saints say, ravished the heart 
of God Himself. "Tota pulchra es" ("Thou art all fair, O my 
Beloved, and there is no spot in thee"). The beauty of this heavenly 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 89 

vision then raises our minds and hearts to realize and love the 
beauty of Chastity. It is useful, nay necessary, for us to have this 
love if .we are to win "the reward of undefiled conquests" ( Wisd. 2). 
The sentiments of the wise man we must make our own — "O, how 
beautiful is the chaste generation with glory, for the memory 
thereof is immortal, because it is known both with God and with 
men. When it is present they imitate it ; and they desire it when it 
has withdrawn itself, and it triumpheth, crowned for ever, winning 
the reward of undefiled conflicts" (Wisd. 4, 1, 2). Such sentiments, 
I say, are necessary, for it is this love that will decide the issue 
of the conflict in those initial stages of the struggle which are so 
full of danger for us. "The soul that hesitates is lost." But the 
soul that really loves this virtue never allows itself to hesitate. Once 
the danger is recognized, love decides the matter. Pleasure, friend- 
ship, curiosity, enjoyment, all will be sacrificed at once when the 
loved virtue of Chastity is threatened. "Be a zealot for thy Chas- 
tity," is the advice of St. John Berchmans, and he means that to be 
secure we must go beyond what the world would call "commonsense 
and reasonable" — we must be zealots in our carefulness, to guard 
this lovely virtue from the faintest breath of corruption. 

Next, our Lady is praying. Prayer is the furnace to which we draw 
near when, through slackness or trepidity, our love begins to lan- 
guish. Some, of course, are tempted more than others ; but we all 
need prayer. Love of Chastity depends upon it, and the heart that 
seems most secure will sooner or later succumb to temptation should 
love grow cold or reliance be placed on merely good natural dis- 
positions. "If any man thinketh himself to stand let him take heed 
lest he fall" (1 Cor. x, 12). The God "who searcheth the reins 
and the heart," and who best knows "what is in man," has inspired 
his Apostle to tell us that Solomon, enlightened by God with more 



90 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

than human wisdom, knew well that without humble prayer it is 
impossible to preserve Chastity. "As I knew that I could not other- 
wise be continent unless the Lord gave it (and this also was a point 
of wisdom to know whose gift it was), I went to the Lord and 
besought Him" (Wisd. 8, 21). The necessity of prayer, then, is 
the second lesson we can learn from this vision of Our Lady : — 
Prayer morning and night; prayer in time of temptation; and the 
blessed habit of ejaculatory prayer. Prayer especially to Our Lady 
herself. Say the three Hail Marys morning and night in honor 
of her Immaculate Conception with fervor and earnestness. Let 
it not be lip service you offer your Queen, but the full outpouring 
of your heart's longing to be like herself in love of Chastity, and 
realizing that it depends on her help. Then, during the day, re- 
member St. Bernard's words : "In dangers, in straits, in difficulties, 
think of Mary, call on Mary. Let her name not leave your lips; 
let it never depart from your heart." For the name of Mary is all 
powerful, and if we get into the habit of pronouncing it we shall 
be as one arways armed in the midst of dangers. For while Mary 
is beautiful as a "Tower of Ivory" for the good, she is strong as 
the fortress of David "against the wicked." "Fair as the moon, 
bright as the sun," but to her enemies "terrible as an army in battle 
array" (Cant. 6, 9). 

But prayer without mortification would be of little use to 
us here; and we might take Mary's standing on the rock at 
Lourdes to remind us that Chastity has its roots in mortification. 
On the rock of Calvary — the rock of restraint and self-denial, 
this flower, so delicate in its bloom, so sweet in its fragrance, but 
alas, so easily blighted, finds its natural abode. We must make up 
our minds to it — that our hearts must be mortified if Chastity is to 
flourish there. What we know to be a dangerous occasion of sin 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 91 

for us, must be given up. Here there can be no compromise. Cost 
what it may, we must free ourselves ruthlessly, if need be, from all 
dangerous entanglements. There are knots in the spiritual life, 
said Fr. Faber, that must be cut, we cannot stop to unravel them. 
It is no use asking our Lady to pray to God for us if we, of our 
own free choice, expose ourselves to what we know is dangerous for 
us. Our Lady could then not help us. It is an insult to ask her, for 
in reality we are but asking her to cooperate with us in the dread sin 
of "tempting God." Do let us try to understand this clearly. The 
Jews, we are told, asked Him a sign from Heaven, tempting Him. 
They asked for a miracle for no other reason than to gratify their 
own evil dispositions, and thereby Scripture says "they tempted 
God." Now consider, is not that just what the sinner does when 
he asks God to help him to escape unharmed from a temptation to 
which he of his own free will has rashly exposed himself? God 
has given him the grace to fly from that temptation. But that grace 
he did not want and he did not use. And having despised that 
he asks for another, and this other nothing less than a miracle — 
to be delivered from the fiery furnace into which he has with his 
eyes open recklessly cast himself. Now what is that but seeking a 
sign from Heaven, as the Jews did, merely to gratify his own evil 
disposition? And, moreover, God has expressly warned us against 
this attitude. "He that loveth the danger shall perish in it" 
(Eccli. iii, 27). And would Our Lady ask God to be false to His 
own Word, and make a mockery of His own warning, by saving 
one from perishing in a danger into which he had recklessly entered 
for no other reason than because he loved it? To suppose such a 
thing is, I say, simply to insult our Lady. 

When the devil, then, tempts us to cast ourselves down from 
a position of safety, promising us that God will give His Angels 



92 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

charge over us, let us learn to answer him with Jesus : "It is written 
thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" (Matt, iv, 7). 

Let us have no risks with our conscience, then. Conscience in 
a young woman who has been well instructed should be a safe and 
sufficient guide when the confessor or the mother cannot be consult- 
ed. That other people do things — read certain books, go to theatres, 
or picture shows, or dances — is no guarantee that we can do them 
with impunity. As we do not wish to judge what is good for 
others, so should we be strong to resist them judging what is good 
for us. "To his own lord each one standeth or falleth" (Rom. 
xiv, 4). And in this matter that lord is conscience. If your con- 
science tells you a thing is wrong for you, do not do it, though all 
the world should say it is right. Our conscience, of course, is not 
infallible, and here or there it may need instruction or correction; 
but it is the interior monitor that God has given to each of us, 
and faithfulness to its instructions is the surest way of coming to 
the knowledge of God's will in the end. "Be not conformed to 
this world," says the Apostle, "but be reformed in the newness of 
your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable 
and the perfect will of God" (Rom. xii, 2). 

But let us remember we prepare ourselves to resist in these big 
temptations by the constant practice of mortification on small occa- 
sions. We must constantly avert our eyes "lest they behold vanity" 
— we must hedge up our ears with thorns, we must check levity, 
we must mortify curiosity — we must at times practise some little 
penance in the matter of eating and drinking. People are fond of 
telling us that God has given us good things to enjoy them. But 
"we thank God best for his good things," says a modern writer 
(Chesterton), "by our moderation in the use of them." I am not 
here urging you to any penance which has not the sanction of 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 93 

obedience, but I earnestly want you to recognize the necessity of 
the lesson which we have gathered from this vision, that mortifica- 
tion must be practised if we are to overcome the concupiscence of 
the flesh. 

"Now, lastly, let us consider Our Lady's words: "I am the Im- 
maculate Conception." They were uttered not so much for the 
sake of the child who heard them as for the sake of the Universal 
Church. It was the sweet utterance of Our Lady's gratitude for 
the dogma of her greatest privilege which had just been defined. 
And her prayer spoken on earth for all the world to hear is directed 
to the Giver of all good gifts in Heaven. She is singing her Mag- 
nificat still — "My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath 
rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He that is mighty hath done 
great things to me and Holy is His Name." I want you to note 
the humility which attributes all to God and the Joy with which 
Our Lady acknowledges it. Humility and Joy — here are two further 
helps to Chastity. If God has preserved us chaste, to Him with 
full hearts let us give the glory. It is Pride that "glories as if it 
had not received." And pride is proverbially near a fall. Spiritual 
writers tell us that God often allows his Saints to be tempted that 
they may preserve their humility. The instance of St. Paul is 
well known. "Lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt 
me, there was given me a sting of the flesh, an angel of Satan to 
buffet me. For which thing, thrice I besought the Lord that it 
might depart from me. And He said to me : "My grace is sufficient 
for thee : for power is made perfect in infirmity." Note those last 
words well. Power — that is, God's power — is made perfect — 
attains its end — secures the victory — in infirmity — when the in- 
firmity is acknowledged. When we humble ourselves, that is, and 
own that without God we can do nothing — then does his power 



94 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

conquer the enemy for us. You see, then, that as pride is a source 
of temptation, humility is the surest means of escape from the 
danger. 

And Joy, too, we must have. Joy is a bright, modest little flower 
that grows in the soil of an humble heart. Whereas Melancholy is 
the soured, sinister offspring of Pride. It is a dangerous state 
of soul. "The devil," says St. Aloysius, "fishes in troubled waters." 
But God fills with perennial joy the heart of one who casts all his 
care on Him — who denies himself the tainted pleasures of this 
world that "he might taste and see how sweet is the Lord." Blessed 
are the clean of heart for they shall see God." That is the source 
of their joy. The clean of heart live in the presence of God. And 
that joy once experienced is held too precious to part with for all 
earth's passionate delights put together." To be with Jesus is a 
sweet paradise: to be without Jesus is a grievous hell (Imitation of 
Christ). Listen, then, to the great Apostle once more: "Rejoice in 
the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Let your modesty be 
known to all me. The Lord is nigh" — "and the peace of God which 
surpasseth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ 
Jesus" (Phil. 4). The joy of the clean of heart is the joy of a good 
child in the presence of a loved and revered father — a joy restrained 
and modest, flooding the soul with such peace that it willingly sacri- 
fices all other pleasure that would prevent its keeping the mind and 
heart in Christ Jesus. 

Humility and joy, then, are the fruits of a grateful recognition, 
that it is God who is Mighty, that has done great things for us, if 
we have preserved unsullied the sweet lily of Chastity in our souls. 
But the word of Our Lady can bring encouragement to a heart 
that, alas, has not been so fortunate. "I am the Immaculate Con- 
ception" refers, as we have seen, to what took place in the soul of 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS 95 

Mary; but at the same time it can refer to what took place in the 
mind of God. From all Eternity we have each one of us lived in 
the thought of God. Of each of us He has had a distinct and 
individual conception. Beforehand He has seen what we would be, 
what His grace would enable us to do — to what height of sanctity 
we might attain, and what place in Heaven we might win. Now, 
we have all sinned and come short of the grace of God. We have 
spoilt God's ideal — we have marred His conception of us. Of all 
human beings only one has never sinned. Mary alone "heard 
God's word and kept it" perfectly. She alone fulfilled his ideal, 
and therefore she alone could say: "I am the Immaculate Concep- 
tion," thereby proclaiming that God's conception of her had never 
been sullied. In this I say we can find a message of comfort to 
our souls. It reminds us that there are saints in Heaven and great 
Saints, too, who here below were not immaculate. And that, there- 
fore, there is another way to Heaven besides the way of Innocence 
— the way of penitential Love. St. Peter fell. But he makes 
amends for his threefold denial by his threefold profession of love, 
and is restored at once to the position from which he had fallen. 
Of Magdalen Christ says: "Many sins are forgiven her because 
she has loved much" and the cry of the great Augustine's penitent 
heart is the cry of remorseful love: "O Beauty, ever ancient and 
ever new, too late have I known thee, too late have I loved thee. 
The lesson is the same in each case. Love, penitential love, can win 
back for us what our sins have lost : 

"No star is lost that only once is seen, 
We always may be what we might have been." 

(A. Proctor.) 
Lost innocence and lost ignorance we can never regain ; but God's 



96 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

favor and God's grace we can — and that, after all, is the great thing. 
Love is the key of Heaven — "the greatest of these is Charity." And 
remember this : God "will not quench the smoking flax." The love 
of God may be in the heart, but the flame may not be pure. God 
waits for better things. And Chastity it is that purifies this love, 
and removes from it all the smoke or alloy of earthly affection. 
What is so chaste, asks Brother Giles, as holy Charity? Chastity 
is something more than the mere, the negation of foul things, the 
mere resistance to impurity. It is the whiteness, the purity in the 
flame of perfect Charity. St. Francis, with arms stretched out in 
the form of a cross, his eyes fixed in ecstacy on Heaven, crying out 
the livelong night, "Deus meus et omnia, Deus meus et omnia" ("My 
God and my all, my God and my all!") has been ever regarded by 
the masters of the Spiritual life as a true example of perfect Chastity 
or the pure love of God alone. 

In conclusion, then, beg of Our Lady to let you see from the 
thorns that encircle the heart of her Son that you must practise 
Restraint. And as it is His wish we should go to Mary to study 
this virtue, ask her to impress upon your minds the lessons of her 
apparition at Lourdes, to understand that you must love intensely 
this virtue : that you must pray and mortify your senses to preserve 
it: that if it has never been sullied in your soul, to God alone with 
grateful thanks the praise must humbly and joyfully be given. Or, 
that, if in any way the devil has scored a victory over you, then 
there is to be no despair, no discouragement, but that you must 
make up for the past by deep, sincere and penitential love of God 
in the future. 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS 97, 



IX. THE SPIRIT OF JESUS : FRATERNAL CHARITY : 

KINDNESS 

"A new Commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I 
have loved you." — John xiii, 34. 

SYNOPSIS. — 1. The wounded heart from which the flames of love are 
pouring on all sides represents the love of Christ net only for the friend 
but for the enemies, whose sins had pierced It. 

2. His Commandment is new, because He gives His love as the Model 
of our love for our neighbor. 

3. He loved, 1st, in obedience to the Father's Will; 2nd, with restraint, 
i. e., He recognizes that those whom His Father had given Him were to 
be the object of His special affection; and He loved them really, un- 
selfishly, but with a love that was restrained and did not fear to rebuke 
when necessary. 

4. To imitate, 1st his obedience. — We must love for God's sake those 
whom God has given us (at home especially) with a love that is real and 
unselfish. 2nd, his restraint. By never allowing our love to become a 
weakness that in any way may cooperate with the sin of another. 

Jesus, as we have seen, then, came to conquer the World — to 
drive out from men's hearts the love of the World by teaching 
them how to overcome the Concupiscence of the Eyes, the Concu- 
piscence of the Flesh and the Pride of Life that are within them. 
And in his Sacred Heart, (as He has revealed it to us) we have seen 
symbolized the Spiritual Weapons with which we are to fight this 
"Good Fight of Faith." Obedience in the "flames of love that 
embrace the Cross," Restraint and mortification of corrupt natural 
inclinations in the thorns that encircle the Heart. And now lastly 
we come to consider the wound that has pierced the Heart of Jesus. 
What does that teach us? "A new commandment I give unto you 



98 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

that you love one another as I have loved you" — the lesson, the 
greatest of all, of "Brotherly Love." 

We are not to suppose that the commandment was "new" in the 
sense that the Jews had never before been told to love their neigh- 
bor. But in this sense — that the love of Christians was to be modelled 
on the love of Christ and to become their distinguishing virtue. 
"By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have 
love one for another (John xiii, 35). The Jews seem to have 
evaded the commandment of brotherly love. The lawyer who 
tempted our Lord (Luke x, 27) shows how the word "neighbor" 
was a matter of dispute with them. They had quarrelled so much 
about its meaning that at last it had no meaning for them at all. 
And so Jesus restores •the commandment to its dignity and gives 
it such surpassing importance that He can call it a new command- 
ment. It was no longer the commandment they had confused and 
distorted by the doctrines and traditions of men. It was new — it 
was His — "My" Commandment He calls it a little later in His 
discourse (John xv, 12). Far removed for ever from their cavil- 
lings and disputations — His followers were to love one another 
as He had loved them. 

But to love our neighbor truly is not only to keep Christ's special 
Commandment, but it is to give proof that we are living in the 
Spirit of Christ. "By this shall all men know that you are my dis- 
ciples if you have love one for another. For just as harshness, 
greed and callous selfishness are characteristic of those who indulge 
their concupiscences and become worshippers of Mammon, so love 
for our neighbor — Charity unfeigned — is certain evidence of the 
conquest of the world and of the reign of Christ in the soul. By 
this we know that we have passed from death to life, because we 
love the brethren" (I. John iii, 14). 



THE SPIRIT OF, JESUS: KINDNESS 99 

For us, then, who are endeavoring to understand something of 
the Spirit of Jesus this Conference should have a special interest: 
for "The Love of Jesus" is that spirit — as we shall see — "the spirit 
of Obedience and Restraint" — exhibited to us in its most attractive 
form. 

Because Jesus despised the world the world in turn hated Him. 
"Know ye," He said, "if the world hate you it hath hated me before 
you" (John xv, 18). But not for all that did He hate the souls 
that were in the world. No — for He himself tells Nicodemus: 
"God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son that 
whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have life 
everlasting." "For God sent not His Son into the world to judge 
the world but that the world may be saved by Him" (John iii, 
16, 17). And in obedience to His Father's Will, Jesus, as we have 
seen, became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. A 
proof of Obedience — yes, but a proof of His love for men too. 
"Greater love than this no man hath that he lay down his life for 
his friends" (John xv, 13). Aye, but Jesus was more than man 
and the Cross was evidence of even greater love than man was 
capable of, for there He laid down His life for his enemies. "For 
scarce for a just man," says St. Paul, "will one die : yet perhaps for 
a good man some one would dare to die. But God commendeth His 
charity towards us because when as yet we were sinners accord- 
ing to the time Christ died for us — when we were enemies we were 
reconciled to God by the death of His son" (Rom. v, 8). 

The world hated Jesus then, but Jesus in obedience to His 
Father's Will and out of love for souls laid down His very life 
for that same world. 

Rightly then can we take the wound in that Sacred Heart as 
proclaiming to us the love of Jesus. It is wounded, but flames are 



ioo A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

pouring forth from it on every side, to show us it is loving still. 
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." 

"Charity is patient — is kind" (I. Cor. xiii, 4). This is the patient 
— the forgiving love of Jesus, the love that filled His heart when He 
stretched out His hands to that city which so cruelly contradicted 
Him and cried out whilst the tears, unchecked, coursed their way 
down His sacred cheeks. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest 
the prophets and slayest them that are sent to thee! How have I 
longed to gather thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wing and thou wouldst not!" Of this love we shall think in our 
next Conference. I merely mention now that I might return to it 
later on, and go on now to speak not of the patient but of the 
active Charity of Jesus — the Charity that is "kind." 

"The Goodness and Kindness of God our Saviour hath appeared," 
says the Apostle (Tit. iii, 4). It appeared: it was made manifest, 
that is, for our instruction. We have to imitate it. Let us try then 
to note its characteristics. First, as we have seen, Jesus loved for 
God's sake. And loving for God's sake His love was true and sin- 
cere. And being true it was disinterested and unselfish. In other 
words, it was as I have said, the manifestation of his spirit — the 
spirit of Obedience and Restraint in its most attractive form. 

Let me try to bring this home to you. At the Last Supper Jesus 
prayed for His disciples in a most beautiful and touching prayer. 
"I have manifested thy name," He says, "to the men whom Thou 
hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were and to Me Thou 
gavest them — I pray for them. I pray not for the world but for 
them whom Thou hast given Me" (John xvii, 6-9). You see the 
stress He lays on the fact that they were given Him by His Father. 
He had chosen them after a night of silent commune with His 
Father, as St. Luke so emphatically tells us. "And it came to pass 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS 101 

in those days that He went out into a mountain to pray and He 
passed the whole night in the prayer of God. And when day was 
come He called unto Him His disciples; and He chose twelve of 
them, whom He also named Apostles" (Luke vi, 12, 13). And on 
another occasion He insists most urgently on this truth: "No man 
can come to me except the Father Who sent Me draw him" 
(John vi). It is quite clear, then, that He recognizes in His Apostles 
men whom His Father had given Him to cherish with a special love. 
For that reason does He always treat them with such gentle courtesy 
and forbearance. They were His Father's gift to Him: and no 
matter what their shortcomings from a human point of view might 
have been, for His Father's sake He loved them tenderly. 

But now — and this is an important point— it was a real love. I 
am the "Truth," said Jesus : and there was no make-believe about 
Him. Obedience to His Father urged Him to look with loving 
eyes on those whom that Father had given Him, but something else 
was wanting before He really loved them. Love to be true must 
come from a particular motive. You cannot love anybody "on gen- 
eral principles." It must be personal and individual to be real. You 
must see something in that person individually to have love for 
that particular person. And so our Lord's love was in the best 
sense discriminating. He loved Peter and He loved James : and 
He loved John: and He loved Judas — yes, bear to think of that. 
Judas was one of the Twelve, and because he had been given Him 
by His Father, Jesus really loved him. But He loved them all for 
different reasons. He loved Peter for what was in Peter and was 
personal to him — and John for what was in John and perhaps was 
not in Peter: and Judas and all the rest in precisely the same way. 
His loving eyes saw in each of those whom God had given Him a 
special individual personal attractiveness on which His love could 



102 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

rest. Without that His love could not have been a true love. But 
His love was most certainly true, and therefore was it necessarily 
personal. But further, his love was disinterested — Charity seeketh 
not her own. For all its depth and sincerity he did not ask a return 
for it. His Father's Will was his one and sufficient reward. That 
is why, though He knew who it was that should betray Him, He 
could behave with such constant love towards Judas that when He 
announced that one was about to betray Him, not one of the Apos- 
tles had the faintest suspicion who it was. He had no thought of 
Himself or of His slighted love then. He thinks only of them. 
"Friend," he says to Judas at the end, "Whereto art thou come? 
(Matt, xxvi, 50). Dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" 
(Luke xxii, 48). And he submitted His cheek to the traitor. What 
but love entirely forgetful of itself, of what was due to it — of its 
own dignity — could have remained so tenderly kind under such 
black, cold-hearted ingratitude? "Charity seeketh not her own" 
(I. Cor. 13), and Jesus thought only of saving his Apostle. 

It is, too, on account of this unselfishness of His love that, when 
occasion demands it, and it is for their spiritual good, He does not 
hesitate to rebuke and correct His Apostles. Once, St. Luke tells us : 
"When great multitudes stood about Him so that they trod upon 
one another, He began to say to His disciples, Beware ye of the 
leaven of the pharisees which is hypocrisy" (Luke xii, 1). And 
commentators see here a public warning amounting to a rebuke — to 
guard his disciples from vain glory. Time and again does He be- 
wail their want of faith. Their boasting He rebukes by setting a 
child in the midst of them, saying, "Unless you be converted and 
become as little children you shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven" (Matt, xviii, 2-3). And we have already considered His 
very stern rebuke to His chief Apostle : "Go behind me, Satan, thou 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS 103 

art a scandal to me: because thou savorest not the things that are 
of God but the things that are of men" (Matt, xvi, 23). 

It is clear, then, that His love, forgetful of itself, was mindful only 
of their soul's welfare and of His Father's business. He sought 
not their esteem or popularity or any return for His love. He 
wished only to do them spiritual good. 

Well, now, my dear children, there is our model: "This is My 
Commandment that you love one another as / have loved you." 
Jesus' love was obedient and restrained. He loved because His 
Father willed it, with a love that was true and sincere. And His 
love was unselfish — It sought not its own — that is, it was mortified 
or Restrained. 

First and foremost then our love must be for God — that is, we 
must recognize that we are to love our neighbor because such is the 
Will of our Father in Heaven. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, 
the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Apoc. xxii, 13). 
All must be for God. This Charity is to be a supernatural work. 
St. Francis de Sales, raised up by God, as we might well suppose, 
to preach by work and word the sweetness of the love of Jesus, said 
something that so gentle a Saint would never have said were it not 
that he was convinced of its truth and desired to convey a serious 
lesson by saying it. It was this: "Some young women are angels 
abroad and devils at home." Coming from so meek a Saint it does 
sound somewhat harsh — but is there one of us able to deny it? 
Alas, how forgetful are they and how forgetful are we all of the 
home of Nazareth. Thirty out of the three and thirty years of 
Jesus were passed in that little home: and for most of those even 
who call themselves Christians it is as though He had never lived 
them at air. Those thirty years are simply lost years. Let us at 
any rate now at last recognize that unless the home life is for us 



104 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

an essential part of our spirituality, we need have no hope of acquir- 
ing the Spirit of Jesus. Look round the members of your family 
at home as Jesus looked upon His Apostles at the Last Supper, then 
pray to your Father in Heaven, as He did, not for the world but 
for those whom God has given you out of the world. You have 
not chosen them but God has in very truth chosen them for you. 
They are souls that need your help: and God has given them to you 
that you might give them that help. Do open your eyes and see. 
Heaven is being lost or won in your family circle — the struggle 
is going on all round you, and can you be indifferent ? The Church, 
the school, the companions of later life — every influence, sacred or 
profane — good, bad or indifferent — is almost powerless against the 
influence of the home. Almost any priest can point to men and 
women, in his own experience, whose lives here Have been rendered 
miserable, and even whose salvation has been imperilled, by the 
influence of that home life. They have gone under in the struggle 
because the kindness which God intended should be their rest and 
encouragement at home was wanting to them. A young woman dying 
in a workhouse told me she would not make her confession because, 
she said, "Before you give me absolution you will tell me I must 
forgive my sister." "Now," she said, "if this were my last breath 
I'd say it — I never will forgive her." It so happened I knew that 
sister to be a good girl : but something she had said or done, not out 
of malice, but thoughtlessly, had entered into the young woman's 
heart: had rankled there and poisoned it: until, as I found her, 
she was actually dying in despair. Believe me, there is a dreadful 
responsibility attaching to the life at home. You cannot come in 
such close and constant contact with human souls without influenc- 
ing them for good or ill in their struggle for Heaven. You would 
not, I know, maliciously do them spiritual harm. But are you as 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS 105 

anxious as Jesus would have you be for the spiritual good of those 
whom God has given you? You are not asked to preach or give 
advice. Still less to find fault or to scold (these things may be well 
enough on occasion), but all that I ask of you now is to be "kind." 
"And be ye kind to one another, merciful, forgiving" (Eph. iv, 32), 
God's grace can work salvation in another's heart once it gains an 
entrance there. What if that grace is waiting on your kindness to 
find it — that entrance? And what, alas, if your unkindness should 
sour that heart and close it fast against God's saving mercy? 

Realize, then, your responsibility and dread to be unkind in 
thought, or word, or deed. But for your encouragement try to 
understand, too, your privilege. God has given you souls to save. 
He has chosen them out of the world for you. "If you save a soul," 
says St. Augustine, "you predestinate your own." Then, my dear 
children, neglect not so great salvation. Do not let the part of 
God's great gift overtake you. Resolve to save your own soul 
by saving the souls that God has given you by true and consistent 
charity. Be an angel at home, then no one will find fault with you 
for being an angel abroad. 

For if charity begins at home, it is not to stop there. It must be 
there or it is doubtful if it exists at all. But granted its firm exist- 
ence there, then it can and ought most certainly to look abroad. 
Your neighbors claim your love as well as your family. They are 
all God's children. "You can make your friends," says Chesterton, 

"you can make your enemies, but God made your next door neigh- 
bor." God has made that soul and brought her near to you that 

you might win for yourself the grace and privilege of being "good 

neighbor" unto her. Some people rather pride themselves on not 

"making neighbors," as they say. And yet Christ teaches us to 

regard it as a privilege. "Which of these three/' he asks of the 



106 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

lawyer who tempted him, "in thy opinion was neighbor to him 
that fell among robbers." And he said: "He that shewed mercy 
to him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do thou in like manner." 
What does that mean but simply go and become a neighbor, go 
and earn for yourself that glorious title by showing mercy and kind- 
ness to others? And if you have been fond of the expression in the 
past, be warned against it for the future. "I never make neigh- 
bors" should only be mentioned with sorrow in the confessional, 
together with a firm purpose of amendment. 

In short, then, we must love and be kind to everybody whom 
our love can reach. We must be "neighbor" to every child of 
God, for God has made all, God loves all, and God wishes us 
to love all. Loving from this motive is to love "for God's sake." 
Now, I want to consider what is sometimes called "loving peo- 
ple for God's sake," which, unfortunately, is quite a different 
thing. There are some good and pious people who make use of 
that phrase simply to evade the commandment. Altogether, a 
neighbor does not come up to their requirements of loveableness 
— is not quite the "it" — as the Americans say — and so they ignore 
her. They don't hate her. They wish her no harm. They 
suppose she is a good woman. She is at church and the Sacra- 
ments as often as they are themselves, so of course they have 
nothing against her. But really, in many ways, she is quite "im- 
possible." Anything like friendship or cordiality with her is en- 
tirely out of the question. But still, of course, there's the Com- 
mandment and — well, they suppose that somehow it's all right: 
and they love her for God's sake. Now what does that really 
mean? Father Faber (another sweet and saintly soul) has said 
another harsh word which I must quote for you: "Pious people," 
he says, "are an unkind lot." It's too good to be altogether true. 



THE SPIRIT 07? JESUS: KINDNESS 107 

Pious people are sometimes the kindest of the kind, but there's 
enough truth in it to make it live. With certain such pious people 
it would almost appear as if common or ordinary kindness were — 
so to speak — off the map of their spirituality. It is such a very 
trivial every-day affair. And they have so many higher spirituali- 
ties to look after. So where it is inconvenient they simply ignore 
it, and say, as we see, they love people "for God's sake." Now 
what does it mean? Mr. Belloc has written an amusing little story 
of a man who suffered from Veracitytis. By a mischance a nerve 
behind his ear had become affected, with the alarming result that 
thereafter he was obliged at all times to tell the exact truth. He 
soon became involved in hopeless difficulties. He told his friends 
just what he thought about them. He ruined a Company of which 
he was a Promotor by giving a veracious account of the true in- 
wardness of some of its most advertised transactions. And as a 
Cabinet Minister he got his whole party into serious trouble by 
telling the exact truth even in the House of Commons itself. Of 
course that was the end of all things. 

Now supposing one of these good pious ladies I have been speak- 
ing of, were by some happy chance to succumb to an attack of 
"Veracitytis," and were to address herself to you with whom, 
let us suppose, she could not manage to agree. fr My dear Mrs. So- 
and-so," she would say quite cheerfully, not knowing she was suf- 
fering from "Veracitytis," "one might as well say a thing as feel 
it ; I really can't bear the sight of you. I wish you were a thousand 
miles away. I have a kind 'of all over feeling' whenever you come 
near me. I can't help saying to myself as soon as I see you, 'Oh, 
here's that woman again.' For you know, everything in you and 
about you sets my nerves on edge. The way you walk; the way 
you talk; your whole manner and appearance is really more than 



io8 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

I can stand. But there — there's no use talking about it. What 
can't be cured must be endured; and as I don't suppose you could 
ever be persuaded to do anything so obliging as to leave the parish, 
I shall have to put up with you somehow. Of course. I don't hate 
you — you understand — we are both pious practising Catholics, and 
I know well enough that I can't do that. In fact, I suppose as I 
keep all the Commandments that I really love you. But don't let 
there be any silly misunderstanding about it. Let me be quite frank. 
If I do love you, it is simply and solely because it is God's Com- 
mandment, and for no other reason under Heaven." Now could 
you not say in all sincerity and truthfulness to that woman, "Thank 
you for nothing." For is not that just what it is? To neighbors 
they don't like they offer a neat little box labelled "love for God's 
sake," but there's nothing inside it. Of course, they make believe 
they are offering you a very valuable present, but when they are 
suffering from Veracitytis they don't mind telling you the worth 
of it. 

Now honestly, this is a very serious matter. It may very well be 
that these people are living in a fool's paradise about their spiritual 
state. They would be angry with me if I told them they didn't love 
God. "Look at all the prayers we say," they'd cry indignantly. 
And of course prayers are a good test of the love of God. But 
St. John gives a better: "He that loveth not his brother whom he 
seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not" (I. John, iv, 20). 
And St. Peter recommends prayers. "Be prudent, therefore, and 
watch in prayers" — but he immediately adds : "But before all things 
have a constant mutual charity" (I. Peter, iv, 7). 

Now let us see what it really is to love for God's sake, as Jesus loved 
His Apostles. There is a neighbor with whom naturally speaking you 
don't agree. You must be prepared for that. There may be no 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS 109 

fault on either side. You are of different dispositions and you 
and she can no more help having different dispositions than you 
can help having different faces. "Star differeth from star," says 
St. Paul of the Saints, and it is as true of their dispositions as it 
is of their glory. It is quite possible that Syntiche and Evodia, for 
instance, never really understood one another till they reached 
Heaven. But sometimes there is fault. Examine and see first if 
it is on your side. There may be something in your own manner 
or conduct that a little humility would show you is the cause of 
your not being of "one mind" with your neighbor. "Thou hypo- 
crite," says Christ, "cast out first the beam out of thy own eye and 
then thou shalt see to cast out the mote of thy brother's eye" 
(Matt, vii, 5). Or the fault may really lie altogether at the door 
of the neighbor. 

Well now, remember it is just in bearing with another's defects 
that we keep the command of Jesus to love one another — "Bear ye 
one another's burdens and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 
vi, 2). Be quite sure that God loves that neighbor and He knows 
her better than you do. When someone tells you that one whom 
you love dearly is "disagreeable or queer," you resent it and say, 
"Oh, you really don't know her." Don't you think God feels hurt 
when we have the impertinence to find fault with one of His friends. 
We don't know her and we are too proud or too lazy to find out the 
good qualities for which God loves her. We shall never love any- 
one unless we know her — but to know her we must for God's 
sake, feel kindly disposed towards her. We must look on her with 
the eyes of love as the mother looks upon even the ugly duckling. 
For Stevenson's paradox is true, "The royal road to know anybody 
is to love him." 

One last word about restraint. I have already spoken of Chas- 



no A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

tity, so I need not speak of a great and obvious danger here. But 
it is quite clear that love for another which is weak enough to 
acquiesce in any sin cannot be for God. "Charity seeketh not her 
own." And if your love for your neighbor smiles in silent approval 
when God is being offended by backbiting, calumny, lies or malice, 
or other sins, then yours is not true charity, for you are "seeking 
your own" ; your own pleasure or amusement, and not loving God. 
If we are to love as Christ loved, our love must be restrained. We 
must aim at seeking no return and at being ready to lose friend- 
ship rather than offend God. But our love must not in conse- 
quence sink into "aloofness." St. Peter speaks, you see, of "mu- 
tual" charity which implies not only a readiness to give, but a hearty 
willingness to receive. Of course there is risk of "attachment." 
But, apart from the Sixth Commandment, that risk is often a spir- 
itual "bogey." In any case we must take that risk. The power of 
mutual charity is a "talent" which God has given us to use "as 
stewards" says St. Peter, "of the manifold grace of God." If 
pious people, through fear, but inane fear, of becoming too attached 
to creatures and thereby losing the love of God, hide that talent, 
it will, I fear, fare badly with them at the end. "Wicked and 
slothful servant," our Lord will say to them, "thou oughtest to have 
committed my money to the bankers. Take ye away, therefore, 
the talent" (Matt, xxv, 27). They are rebuked and punished pre- 
cisely because they would not take the risk. Nay, that which they 
seemed to have — the love of God itself — is lost to them. "Take ye 
away the talent, for he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth — 
how can he love God whom he seeth not" (I. John iv, 20). 

Let us resolve then, in imitation of Christ, to have that Charity 
which is kind (I. Cor. xiii) — a love of God which shows itself in 
true and unselfish kindness to our neighbor. Without love of God 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: KINDNESS in 

even the giving all we have to feed the poor will profit us nothing 
(I. Cor. xiii), but with this love, though we may not think of it at 
the moment, the least kind act we do to our neighbor, God will take 
as done to Himself, and it will merit for us an eternal reward 
(Matt, xxv ). 



112 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 



X. THE SPIRIT OF JESUS : FORGIVENESS 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."— Matt, v, 7. 

SYNOPSIS.— 1. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Forgiveness, as St. John 
learned and taught us in the interviews he describes which our Lord Jiad 
(/) with Nicodemus; (2) the woman at the well; (3) the woman brought 
to Him for condemnation. 

2. To be like Jesus then — to be children of God — to have our sins for- 
given we must forgive. 

3. We must forgive from our heart. "I forgive but I don't forget" 
sometimes admissible, sometimes not. 

4. The advantage of forgiveness. St. John Gualbert. 

5. The difficulty: to forgive on a big occasion we must have learned 
mercy and meekness already. We learn it by constant practise, e. g. 
St. Francis de Sales. Especially by never taking offense. The advantage 
of this. 

We have thought of the "Charity that is kind," and now we go 
on to think of the "Charity that is patient" (I. Cor. 13). It is typi- 
fied for us in the broken Heart of Jesus — pierced and bleeding but 
loving and merciful still. We are aiming at the spirit of that Heart 
— that is, we are aiming at perfection. It is high I grant you. But 
we agreed to aim high : 

A man's reach should be beyond his grasp! 
Or what's Heaven for? 

Even though we never grasp what we can scarcely reach, Heaven 
will be our reward for striving. It is God's will. "Be ye perfect 
as your heavenly Father is perfect" is the word of Christ to us. 
We want His spirit. We want to be like Him. We want to be 
children of God. And hard though it is, we are not to be fright- 
ened from trying. We dare not ; for not to try is to go over to the 
enemy. "He that is not with Me is against Me," and by God's 
grace that is not going to happen again to us. 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 113 

Now I say that by this "Charity that is patient" we can acquire 
the spirit of Jesus and become the Children of God ; and without it 
we shall most certainly go over to the enemy and lose our soul. 

"Learn of me," says Jesus, "because I am meek and humble of 
heart," and it is from His acts of "the charity that is patient," that 
is forgiving, that endureth all things, in other words, from His 
merciful love of sinners, that we are to learn that lesson. It was 
thus St. John, the Apostle of love, learnt it. For he, too, had to 
learn like the rest of us. There was a time when he was not the 
Apostle of love, when he had not the spirit of meekness. St. Luke 
tells us that once Jesus, when going through Samaria to Jerusalem, 
sent messengers before His face ; and going they entered a city of 
the Samaritans to prepare for Him, and they received Him not, be- 
cause His face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when His dis- 
ciples James and John had seen this they said: wilt Thou that we 
command fire to come down from Heaven to consume them? And 
turning He rebuked them, saying: "You know not of what spirit 
you are. The Son of Man came not to destroy souls, but to save" 
(Luke ix, 52). 

In those days, then, St. John knew not the spirit of meekness of 
his divine Master, nor His tender forgiving love for the souls He 
had come to save. Afterwards, thanks be to God, for his own sake 
and for ours he did know that spirit and was inspired by God in 
a special manner to teach it to us. He learnt it when at the last 
supper he rested his head on the sacred Breast of the Saviour and 
felt the beatings of that loving Heart for man. He learnt it when 
standing with Mary at the foot of the Cross he heard the tender plea 
for pity "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," 
and, when turning to the thief, who asked for pardon almost be- 
fore the sound of blasphemies had died away, "This day," said 



H4 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Jesus, "thou wilt be with Me in paradise." Then surely John realized 
of what spirit he was; then must he have understood that with 
Jesus there was no question of vengeance, of bringing down from 
heaven the fire of divine wrath, but only the desire to pardon and 
to save. But more clearly still when the Holy Ghost had brought 
all things to his mind did the lesson of that marvelous life come 
home to this Apostle of Love. Then did it seem to him that every 
word and deed of Jesus had been but a new revelation of the love 
of God for sinners and a fresh incentive for us to love our neigh- 
bor and forgive our enemies. 

The two great truths that stand out prominently above all others 
in St. John's Gospel are that Jesus is "the Word" or the Revelation 
of God, and that the God he reveals is a "God of love." For God 
is charity (i John iv). In words simple indeed but of unsurpassed 
sublimity he begins his gospel by proclaiming the eternal generation 
and divinity of .the Word "that was made flesh and dwelt amongst 
us." That Word was Jesus of Nazareth. And just as a word you 
utter reveals the hidden thought in your mind, so the Word had 
come to reveal to us the hidden God. That God had ever loved 
the creature He had made, "My thoughts towards you," He had 
said, "are thoughts of peace," thoughts of love and reconciliation, 
thoughts of forgiveness and pardon. But never had that love been 
fully revealed to man till the "Word was made flesh and dwelt 
amongst us," then, indeed, could it be said: "The goodness and 
kindness of God our Saviour hath appeared" (Tit. 3, 4). That 
is the theme of St. John's Gospel that the kindness of God appeared 
in the mercy and love Jesus showed to sinners. 

It is well for us to dwell on this, that we might take in the great 
lesson of the beloved disciple. It seems to have been his inspira- 
tion to bring home to us by vivid and intensely real pictures the 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 115 

mercy of Jesus as revealed to this or that particular man or woman. 
That mercy had already been preached, of course, by the other Evan- 
gelists. But to St. John it was left to give the revelation, that 
touch of vital interest which so rivets our attention and steadies 
our gaze and stamps the impression when we see that mercy dis- 
played to individuals. Its effect is to make us say with St. Paul: 
"He loved me and delivered Himself for me" (Gal. 7-20), which 
is just what St. John would have us say. 

Out of the many individual interviews of which St. John gives 
so clear an account let me remind you of three: with Nicodemus, 
with the woman at the well, and with the woman brought to Him 
for condemnation. 

To Nicodemus, who comes to Him by night, He speaks as to one 
learned in the law and the scriptures. He encourages this weak 
man's timid spirit and raises his soul to confidence. "And as Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the desert," He says to him, "so must the 
Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in Him may not 
perish but may have life everlasting. For God so loved the world 
as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
may not perish but may have life everlasting" (John iii, 14) . The 
good seed sown in that timorous heart bore fruit at last when the 
Son of Man was indeed lifted up, and Nicodemus taking his cour- 
age in his hands went with Joseph who boldly demanded from 
Pilate the broken Body of Jesus, and together with him laid it in the 
sepulchre. 

With the woman at the well the same loving mercy wins the same 
victory of conversion. He greets her gently when she comes with 
her pitcher for water. "Give Me to drink," He says to her. Then 
when she is at her ease with Him, He tells her so quietly and gently 
of her sins that she is not repelled or frightened. No, she grows 



n6 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

subdued and contrite. "Sir," she says, "I perceive that Thou art 
a prophet." Which was an acknowledgment of the truth of what 
He said and a confession of her sins. Jesus had won her. All that 
remained now to be done was to reveal Himself to her. She gives 
Him the opportunity. "I know," she says, "that the Messiah 
cometh, who is called Christ, therefore when He is come He will 
tell us all things." And Jesus is quick to take it. "I am He who 
am speaking with thee." At once does she know the gift of God 
and who it is who said to her "Give Me to drink." "The woman 
therefore," says St. John, "left her waterpot and went her way into 
the city and saith to the men there, 'Come and see a man who hath 
told me all things whatsoever I have done, is not He the Christ' ' 
(Jn. iv). "She came to Him a sinner," says St. Augustine, "she 
goes her way a preacher." And lastly, oh how little did they who 
brought to Him the sinful woman know of what spirit He was. 
"He that is without sin amongst you let him cast the first stone at 
her," is His chilling answer to their challenge to Him to condemn 
her. And when hearing this they went out one by one beginning 
at the eldest, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they that ac- 
cused thee. Hath no man condemned thee?" She said, "No man, 
Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither will I condemn thee. Go and 
now sin no more" (John viii). 

St. John gives several other of these beautiful interviews with 
individual souls, but I have chosen these three, for they have this 
connection with my subject that they show Jesus dealing with those 
who in one way or another were His enemies. Nicodemus was a 
Pharisee; the woman at the well was a Samaritan, and the other 
woman was a sinner. See then how Jesus treats His enemies. He 
not only lets them come to seek His pardon, but He goes out of His 
way to offer it to them. He shows His anxiety. He demeans Him- 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 117 

self before them, as men might say, to make reconciliation an easy 
matter for them. And note, it is all done by His Father's will. 
"God sent His Son," we have heard Him say to the Pharisees, "that 
the world may be saved by Him." "My meat is to do the will of 
Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work," is His explana- 
tion of His talk to the Samaritan woman. And when it was objected 
to Him "this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them" (Luke xv, 
2) He justifies His conduct on this same ground. In the parables 
of the "Lost Sheep," the "Lost Piece of Money" and the "Prodigal 
Son," by which He replies to that charge, He shows how there 
is joy before God and His angels upon one sinner doing penance 
(Luke ib.). 

What wonder then that St. John should be enlightened by the 
Holy Ghost to see in the life of Jesus, above all things else, the reve- 
lation of the love of God for sinners. And that, consequently, He 
should gather from that life, as its chief lesson, that we should love 
all men as brethren, even though men may not love us. "In this is 
charity," he says, "not as though we had loved God, but because 
He hath first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation of our 
sins. My dearest, if God hath so loved us we ought also to love 
one another. If any man say I love God and hateth his brother 
he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how 
can he love God whom he seeth not" (1 John iv, 10 sq.). 

Here, then, is the Apostle's teaching. At one time, as we have 
seen, he wanted to bring down fire from heaven upon his enemies. 
But he had learnt his lesson. He knew at the end "of what spirit 
he was," and he tries to teach it to us. May he pray for us now that 
these words of Jesus which contain this lesson may sink deep into 
our heart and bring forth fruit and patience. 

"You have heard that it has been said thou shalt love thy neigh- 



n8 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

bor and hate thy enemy ; but I say to you love your enemies, do good 
to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and calum- 
niate you that you may be the children of your Father Who is in 
Heaven, Who maketh His sun rise upon the good and bad ; for if you 
love them that love you, what reward shall you have ? Do not the 
publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do 
you more ? Do not also the heathens this ? Be ye therefore perfect 
as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt, v, 43 sq.). 

To love those who love us is no virtue. We do it without effort, 
it is natural to us. We should be monsters — "monsters of ingrati- 
tude" is the word men would use of us — did we act otherwise. Jesus 
expects something more than that if we are to have His spirit. To 
merit His reward, to become children of our Father in Heaven, to 
advance in perfection, we must learn to love our enemies. Blessed 
are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed because 
imitating their divine Model they have become children of God 
and heirs to the kingdom of heaven. But woe to those who are 
not merciful. The text implies that for them there shall be no 
mercy. And St. James expressly declares, "Judgment without 
mercy to him that hath not done mercy" (Jas. ii, 13). It is quite 
necessary for us then to consider this darker aspect of the subject. 

"If you will not forgive men, neither will My Father forgive you 
your offences," says our Lord (Matt, vi, 15). Now look at this 
crucifix and see what your offences are. See these thorns, these 
nails, this open side, this bruised and broken Body dripping blood; 
that is your work if you have sinned grievously. "They who sin 
grievously crucify again to themselves the Son of God, making Him 
a mockery" (Heb. vi, 6). Now Jesus says unless you forgive, your 
Heavenly Father will not forgive you this. Whatever we have to 
forgive, surely we have much more to be forgiven. It is really an 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 119 

easy bargain for us. But our salvation may depend upon it. God 
has been most merciful to us, but Jesus clearly warns us we shall 
lose all right to that mercy unless we are merciful to others. That 
warning is in the concluding words of our Lord's parable of the 
unjust servant. "Then," says Christ, "his lord called him and said 
to him, 'Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt — shouldst 
not thou then have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as 
I had compassion on thee?' And his lord being angry deliv- 
ered him to the tortures. So also shall My Heavenly Father do to 
you if you forgive not every man his brother from your hearts" 
(Matt, xviii, 32 sq.). 

Let us make up our minds then that we can hope for mercy only 
so far as we are merciful to others. And note our Lord says "from 
your hearts." We may deceive our confessors, we may deceive our- 
selves, but we cannot deceive God. It is no use telling Him we for- 
give unless we really do forgive from our hearts. I forgive but I 
won't forget is a saying which like "I love for God's sake" is ca- 
pable of a quite satisfactory meaning, but, unfortunately, is often 
used as a "cloak for malice." I won't forget may be simply the 
statement of a fact. God does not command impossibilities; and 
sometimes to forget an injury is a sheer impossibility. In the life of 
St. Jane de Chantal, for instance, we read how when her husband 
was accidentally shot by a friend of his when out with a shooting 
party, her grief for a time seemed utterly inconsolable. Saint though 
she was, even then, she could not bring herself to see or speak with 
the man who had shot her husband. But never for a moment did 
she harbor bitter or revengeful thoughts against him. She might 
say with perfect truth but without sin "I shall never forget" — for 
the memory of her cruel loss had become part of her very existence. 
But all the time with the whole strength of her iron will she battled 



120 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

with, and finally conquered, all feelings of revolt and resentment 
that for more than a year struggled for mastery within her soul. 
With her then the impossibility of forgetting made her forgiveness 
all the more heroic and meritorious. 

But there are those with whom "I forgive but I won't forget" 
means simply "I'll bide my time. I can do nothing at present, so I'll 
forgive — but I won't forget. I'll take very good care of that. I 
shall watch my opportunity, and when it comes I'll get my own 
again." They may deceive their confessor by saying, "I forgive," 
they may even deceive themselves, I say, but they cannot deceive 
God. Think of such a one praying to God "Forgive us our tres- 
passes as we forgive them that trespass against us." Remember, 
these are Christ's own words, and He has clearly explained what 
He means by them. You might honor Him with your lips, but if 
your heart is far from Him be sure He knows it. And if you don't 
forgive from your heart, then, no matter what words you say, "My 
Father will not forgive you your offences" — will be His word 
to you. 

Now I don't want you to feel discouraged about this. I said it 
was asking something very hard of you. But do remember it is not 
I who am asking it, it is Jesus. We cannot alter that. If we are 
to reach heaven, it must be by fulfilling His conditions, not our own. 
And that is one of them. But since it is His commandment, then 
be quite sure He will give you the grace to fulfil it, if you ask Him, 
"ask and you shall receive." "His commandments," says St. John, 
speaking especially of charity, "are not heavy" (i John v, 3). If 
we find it burdensome, then it is our own fault, because we forget 
our Model and we do not ask His help. 

But now if you do make up your mind to forgive some real wrong 
or injustice that has been done to you, you will most surely find 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 121 

that that heroic act of charity and mercy is its own reward. The 
words of Christ will be singing in your ears and making melody 
in your heart. Forgive and you shall be forgiven (Luke vi). There 
is no simpler, straighter, more absolute promise in holy Scripture 
than that. It almost makes us wish that we really had something 
worth while to forgive that we might go to Jesus and say "Forgive 
me, for from my heart I forgive my brother, and Thy promise 
stands though heaven and earth should pass away. Forgive and 
you shall be forgiven." 

I have told you of a soul that risked salvation rather than 
forgive. But how many are there now in Heaven, on the other 
hand, who are there because they overcame resentment and for- 
gave an injury. One at least is a canonized Saint. When a 
boy, his brother had been slain in a quarrel. And the young 
John Gualbert was brought up with the thought of the vendetta, 
of the day of revenge, burnt into his soul. That was to be 
his great achievement, to revenge his brother's murder. When he 
had reached man's estate, on a certain Good Friday he was riding 
armed and attended through a pass in the hills outside Florence, 
when suddenly he came upon his life-long enemy. There was his 
brother's murderer, delivered, as it seemed, into his hands, for he 
was without weapons and unattended. The unfortunate wretch thus 
found himself suddenly face to face with the long-threatened pun- 
ishment of his guilty deed. Those were turbulent days in Italy, as 
elsewhere, those early days of the thirteenth century, but they were 
days of faith. His supreme peril brought his religion to his mind. 
Throwing himself on his knees before his adversary already ad- 
vancing to slay him, and stretching out his arms in the form of a 
cross : "Pardon," he cried, "pardon for the love of the Saviour who 
died for His enemies to-day." And oh! thanks be to God for the 



122 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

victory of Faith, John Gualbert dismounted from his horse, and 
kneeling in the road by the murderer of his brother he threw his 
arms around him and kissed him : "Yes," he said, "for the love of 
Christ, who died for us both on Good Friday, I do forgive you." 

And that act, I say, made him a saint. He rose from his knees. 
He went into a neighboring shrine, and there before the image of his 
Crucified Saviour he poured out his soul in tears of heartfelt re- 
pentance for his life of hatred and bitter enmity. The merciful God 
showed by a miracle how pleased He was with that great act of 
mercy. The figure on the Cross bowed its head towards him in 
token of His pardon and forgiveness. Following the inspirations 
of grace John Gualbert shortly after determined to leave the world. 
He sold his possessions and gave the proceeds to the poor and 
entered a monastery of very strict observance. There he passed 
many years in the practice of great austerity and penance and died 
at last in the odor of sanctity, and we honor him on the Church's 
altars throughout the world to-day as St. John Gualbert. 

If you find it hard to forgive, then look at your crucifix again. 
Let the wounds plead with you as with this saint. Then hear St. 
John appeal once more : "My dearest, if God has so loved us, ought 
we not therefore to love one another ?" ( I John iv, 1 1 ) . 

Now there are two remarks I should like to make about that act 
of forgiveness. The first is that opportunities of performing heroic 
acts of mercy occur but seldom in a lifetime, and that when they 
do — except as in this case a perfect miracle of grace intervene to 
assist one — they will be seized only by those whose hearts have al- 
ready been rendered merciful by the constant practice of mercy 
and meekness in the ordinary affairs of every-day life. Great acts 
of mercy cannot be suddenly forced out of a hardened heart. They 
flow spontaneously from a kind heart. 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS. 123 

The quality of Mercy is not strained, 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd : 
It blesseth him that gives : and him that, takes. 
St. Francis de Sales is, as you know, looked upon as the great 
model of meekness even amongst the servants of God. Now it was 
only by constant practice that he acquired this habit of virtue, for 
in his youth he was of a quick and somewhat hasty temperament. 
We have proof of this from his own lips. When a bishop and ad- 
vanced in years, it was his duty to refuse to a certain man a favor 
he had come some distance to beg of him. The man urged his plea 
good-temperedly enough at first. But finding the saint firm in his 
refusal he gave way to violent anger and poured out his pent up 
wrath in most vile and insulting language to the holy bishop. When 
at last the man flung out of the room and the storm was over, the 
bishops secretary, who had been present at the interview, could no 
longer restrain his amazement. "My Lord," he cried, "how could 
you remain so calm and unruffled under the lies and insults of that 
wretched man ?" The saint with a smile then made this revelation : 
"For five and twenty years I have been striving to gather together 
a little stock of meekness, and do you think it would have been wise 
to lose it all in a moment on such a man as that?" 

Five and twenty years — think of that. Be quite sure that the 
grace of God will not be wanting to you in the big events of life if 
only you correspond to it faithfully in the small events. Acquire 
mercy by the daily practice of little acts of mercy; forgiving, as 
Jesus told St. Peter, not seven times only, but seventy times seven 
times, and when the big chances come of showing yourself a child 
of God by an act of forgiveness, which the world in its folly would 
condemn as a weakness, you will do good to your own soul and save 



124 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

your neighbor, too, as a good steward of the manifold grace of God. 
"It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." 

Now as to how we are to practice this spirit of meekness and 
mercy in our daily lives, I shall give you one piece of advice and 
only one that you may remember it. It is this: Make up your 
mind "never to take offence." If you cannot excuse the word or 
act that insults you, at any rate you can generally with a little good 
will, excuse the intention. As a rule God only can know the full 
intention. Leave it to God then and do not waste time trying to 
be as God, knowing good and evil. You can, and sometimes ought, 
to redress a wrong done to your good name, but be very slow even 
then to attribute malice. If Jesus could find an excuse for the 
Jews, "they know not what they do," it ought not be hard for us 
to excuse the little unkindness of our neighbors. And in so doing 
we shall generally be right. "Kind thoughts," says Faber, "are 
usually true thoughts." Even "they know not what they do" was 
true of most of the Jews. "Had they known," says St. Paul, "they 
would never have crucified the Lord of Glory" (i Cor. ii, 8). 
Whereas unkind thoughts, being untrue, are the raw materials of 
rash judgments and calumny, kind thoughts, even if occasionally 
wrong, do harm to nobody. Our precious dignity, or "proper 
pride," as people call it, would probably pity itself — well let it ! If 
it would only hang itself it would merely rid us of the nuisance 
of keeping it up. And by our refusing to take offense malicious 
neighbors would be positively benefited. If there was a spark of 
goodness left in him he would humbly take your mercy and be 
blessed thereby. It blesses him that takes. You would "gain your 
brother." But even if he did not take it you would not lose the 
reward of your kindness, and at the least he would be taught a good 
lesson. 



THE SPIRIT OF JESUS: FORGIVENESS 125 

Whene'r I spoke 
Sarcastic joke 

Replete with malice spiteful, 
These people mild, 
They only smiled, 

And voted me delightful. 
Now when a wight 
Sits up all night, 

Ill-natured jokes devising, 
And all his wiles, 
Are met with smiles, 

It's hard — there's no disguising. 

You see it is the spiteful man "King Gama" only that suffers from 
this kindness. If then taking offence never does good and gen- 
erally does harm, and not taking offence never does harm and gen- 
erally does good, the resolution never to take offence can surely 
be urged upon you. Practise it at home in your daily life, and when 
big occasions arise, your mercy will be strong enough to conquer 
them. Thus will you "learn of Jesus to be meek and humble of 
heart." You will win the mercy promised to the merciful. You 
will be practising the precepts and earning the reward of your 
Saviour. "Judge not and you shall not be judged; condemn not 
and you shall not be condemned; forgive and you shall be for- 
given" (Luke vi, 37). 



126 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 



XL PRAYER 

"And going out, He went according to His custom to the Mount of Olives. 
And His disciples followed Him. And when He was come to the place He 
said to them: 'Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.' And He was withdrawn 
away from them a stone's cast, and kneeling down He prayed." — Luke 
xxiii, 40. 

SYNOPSIS. — (1) Jesus of word and example urges upon us the necessity 
of prayer. 

(2) St. Alphonsus' word considered: 

(a) "Unless you pray you will be lost." Why? Because our 
enemies are too powerful. The devil, world and the flesh 
are stronger than our natural power can hope to conquer. 
But Jesus has conquered these enemies and will help us. 
Therefore: 
(&) "// you pray you will most certainly be saved" i. e., if we 
pray with confidence. Dangers to confidence considered: 
(7) Our past sins. 
(2) Pride. 

(5) Want of courage to persevere in spite of obstacles. 
Moses in Old Law and Canaanitish women in New are 
examples of perseverance. 
(4) Want of earnestness in daily prayer. 

By word and by example our Lord throughout His life is ever 
insisting upon the necessity of prayer. "Watch ye, therefore, praying 
at all times" (Luke xxi, 36). And he spoke also a parable to them 
that we ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke xviii, 1). In 
a special manner He taught His disciples to pray, inspiring them 
first with a great desire for this knowledge, "Lord, teach us to 
pray" (Luke xi, 1). He warns them against the pride and vain 
glory of the prayer of the Pharisees and gives them the "Our 
Father" as the model of their prayers (Matt, vi, 6 sqq). Such are 
His words. 



PRAYER 127 

But more remarkable still is His example. He was God and 
needed not prayer for His own sake. He prays to give us an ex- 
ample. "And rising very early, going out, He went into a desert 
place and there He prayed" (Mark i, 35) : "He went up into a 
mount alone to pray" (Matt, xii, 23). "And He passed the whole 
night in the prayer of God" (Luke vi, 12). And in the text 
we have both word and example. It was to be His last word and 
His last example before He suffered. He knew how afterwards 
they would remember it. It would be burnt into their minds how, 
through neglect of His warning, they had turned traitors and aban- 
doned Him in his cruel need — "Pray lest ye enter into temptation" 
— and being withdrawn away from them a stone's cast, kneeling 
down He prayed. Alas ! word and example failed to arouse them, 
then; but the subsequent disasters of that dreadful night must have 
imprinted in letters of fire on their minds and hearts for ever those 
gentle words of Christ — "Watch and pray lest ye enter into tempta- 
tion." They saw what they were without prayer. The iron had 
entered their souls. They were weak, they were cowards. They 
could do nothing. What utter need had they — they who, being what 
they were, had been chosen by Christ to be Apostles — to carry His 
name before kings and emperors and nations to the uttermost bounds 
of the earth — what need had they, I say, to be endued with strength 
from on high by the Holy Ghost? And so, with that humble and 
earnest prayer they prepared themselves for His coming. St. Paul 
is joined to their ranks because as God told Ananias who hesitated 
to receive Him, "Behold, he prayeth" (Acts ix, 11). Cornelius the 
Centurion is the first gentile convert, and amongst other things that 
merited for him this singular favor is especially mentioned that 
"He was always praying to God" (Acts x, 2). Understand it well, 
then, if we are ever to be in heaven with Jesus, Mary and Joseph — 



128 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

with the Apostles, with the saints of the early Church as of all times, 
then, like them, we must become men and women of prayer. Go 
up in spirit to that region of the blessed and ask the greatest or the 
least amongst them how they won their crown — the answer will be 
ever the same — "He that is mighty hath done great things for me — 
I am here because I prayed." Or go down in spirit to the dread 
prison house where God's hand is heavy on his children, ask what 
brought those souls there, and they will tell you, "We are lost and 
for all eternity in hell because we did not pray." "If you pray you 
will be saved," says St. Alphonsus. "If you do not pray you will 
be lost." There is the grand conclusion to which this great saint — 
this untiring missioner and founder of a missionary order — this 
deep-read theologian and holy doctor of the Church of God would 
lead us all. Raised up by God in these latter days to stem the 
rising tide of infidelity and moral corruption which threatens de- 
struction to all that here is fair and breathes of heaven, he takes as 
his chief instrument the doctrine of the necessity of prayer. On it 
he bases the teaching of his dogmatic and ascetic theology — it is the 
constant recurring theme of his sermons and meditations. It is 
the subject of his most anxious instructions to his missioners. By 
it he warns souls of exalted piety not to think they stand of their 
own power; but to take heed lest they fall; and by it he holds out 
hope to the most abandoned that as long as they pray they need 
never despair. "If you pray you will be saved, if you do not pray 
you will be lost." "Give me to drink," says our Lord to the woman 
at the well. He asks a little thing of us: something we can give 
with scarce an effort — but something he deigns to desire— to thirst 
for — and He promises us Eternal Life in exchange. "Pray and you 
will be saved." But that little thing we must give, the little act 
we must do, that little prayer we must say — for God's grace seeks 



PRAYER 12$ 

at least a "willing mind." "He who made you without yourself," 
says the great Augustine, "will not save you without yourself." If 
you pray, then, you will be saved, if you do not pray you will be 
lost. 

It seems to me that we could not do better than take this Great 
Apostle of prayer, St. Alphonsus, as our guide in this meditation, 
and consider together the meaning of this saying of his. 

How can it be, let me begin by asking, that prayer is so absolutely 
necessary? Is it strictly true to say that without prayer we shall 
most certainly be lost? Let us examine this statement. "Man's 
life," says holy Job, "is a warfare" (Job vii, i). We are in a 
state of war then. Our wrestling indeed is "not against flesh and 
blood, enemies we can see — but against principalities and powers of 
darkness" (Eph. vi, 12), which we cannot see, and therefore 
which are harder to determine. And here at once is a serious 
danger. In our own day have been fought very dreadful wars 
which are all within our memory. It is easy to recall that though 
they differ widely in other respects they have this in common, that 
in each case disasters (sometimes irretrievable disaster) overtook 
the greater nation, for the one reason that the stronger nation made 
too light of the powers of its adversary. Now let us be warned, 
therefore, not to underrate our spiritual foes that would lead us 
straight to disaster not merely irreparable in this world but even 
eternally so hereafter. 

Now, who are our enemies? We range ourselves, at Baptism, 
under the standard of Christ. We become His soldiers; and we 
promise to fight against the devil, the world and the flesh. These 
three are our enemies; then let us take care not to make light of 
them. 

In the first place, there is the devil, then. At one time one of 



130 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

God's bright angels, he was endowed with many mighty powers of 
intelligence and will — adorned with such attributes, arrayed with 
such majesty, clothed with such beauty and resplendent with such 
glory that, even in the presence of God Himself, a third of the 
mighty host of heaven took him for their leader and refused obe- 
dience to their eternal Lord. It is true that he was overthrown — 
"I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven" (Luke x, 18), said 
Christ. And in that ruin he lost his external glory and magnificence. 
But let us remember "the gifts of God are without repentance" and 
he still retains in hell the mighty powers and attributes of mind and 
will he once possessed as Lucifer in heaven. But, unable now to 
fight in open warfare against his God, he directs all his powers to 
the ruin of God's creatures. And your souls especially are the 
object of his envious and relentless hatred. He hates you as he 
hates God Himself — for you are the children of God. He hates you 
as he hates the precious Blood of Jesus — for you are the purchase of 
that precious Blood, and through it are heirs to those thrones from 
which he and his rebel host were cast. St. Peter compares his 
fierce hatred to that of the hungry lion — "He goeth about," he tells 
us, "like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (i Pet. v, 8). 
Had he his way he would tear and rend you as the fiercest of the 
beasts tears and rends its prey. Moreover to the power and 
ferocity of the lion he unites the cunning of the serpent. He de- 
ceived our first parents, and since the fall throughout all the ages 
he has never been idle. He knows the heart of man as none other 
save God can know it. He knows you far better than you know 
yourself. He knows the temptations you can conquer and the one 
that is too strong for you. He may use your strength against your- 
self. The weak temptation you overcome he will use as an incentive 
to trust to your own strength. Then when you think yourself to 



PRAYER 131 

stand will come the temptation that he knows will lure you to your 

fall. 

His power over us is helped by a circumstance peculiar to our 
times of unbelief. Father Faber reckons it as the great victory of 
the devil that he has somehow managed to make himself popular. 
Men have turned from God, and now seek comfort from the devil. 
In their troubles about the future; in their anxiety over a present 
crisis, they now pray no longer to their Father in heaven, but, 
by spiritualists, fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, they eagerly try to 
seek the information they desire from the devil. Oh, blind 
fools, if they did but know how bitterly he hates them. Let 
us not be deceived. Have you nothing to do or to say with this, 
one of the worst of all dangers. It is literally playing with hell 
fire. There is a saying, "Give the devil his due." Well, I say 
it, too. Give him his due — "Hate him." That's his due, for never 
can your hatred of him equal his for you. It is because men have 
lost that healthy hatred of him that our fathers had; because they 
look upon the devil now more or less as a joke, that his power is 
growing so appalling amongst us. You must fear him. You must 
convince yourself that of yourself you are absolutely powerless 
against him. His power, his strength, his cunning, his relentless 
hatred give him simple and absolute mastery over you. But now 
the devil works not alone. He makes use of the world to help him. 
He appeals to our concupiscences through the sights and sounds 
that meet us on every side. "The world is too much with us." 
All day long, our eyes, our ears, our imaginations are assailed with 
impressions which, if not positively wicked, can by the devil's cun- 
ning be made a temptation to wickedness, and the memory of them 
lingers with us even when the incidents have passed away. Men 
and women, too, there are who willingly cooperate with the evil 



132 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

one to ruin the souls of others. Monsters in very truth, more dia- 
bolical than human, who do satan's evil work more effectually than 
he could do it himself. They seem possessed with a loathing and 
hatred for all that is pure and innocent, and never are more happy 
than when engaged in dragging down other souls to the depths of 
their own depravity. 

Such is the great evil that is understood by "the world." Its 
danger lies not in this or that particular temptation — disastrous as 
at times such particular temptation may unfortunately prove — but 
in its general atmosphere it is poisonous, and our corrupt nature 
makes us peculiarly liable to its infection. We have considered this 
already, and I have spoken to little purpose if I have not convinced 
you that the concupiscence of the eyes and the concupiscence of the 
flesh and the pride of life make the world for us a danger too great 
for our feeble nature left to itself to struggle successfully against. 

And lastly, there is the flesh — I understand by this our lower ap- 
petites and animals instincts which create within us such heavy 
inertia for good and such a terrible propensity to evil that our will 
seems utterly unable to resist. Our merciful Saviour in all things 
like ourselves, sin only excepted, feels compassion for us. "The 
spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak" (Matt, xxvi, 41). And 
in the keenness of his sympathy St. Paul — all things to all men — 
seems to experience the struggle in his own person : "For to will is 
present with me, but to accomplish that which is good I find not — I 
see another law in my members fighting against the law of mind 
and captivating me in the law of sin. Unhappy man that I am, who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God 
by Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. vii, 18, sqq). For our instruc- 
tion is the great Apostle inspired to depict with striking vividness 
this terrible danger and at the same time to show us our remedy. 



PRAYER 133 

Here I want only to say that that remedy does not lie in our own 
power. As "against the devil" and the world, so also against th£ 
flesh, left to our own resources, we can but struggle in vain. 

Surely then, my dear children, the conclusion is obvious if each 
of our three great enemies taken in turn is thus shown to be too 
powerful for us, what possible chance have we against them in 
combination leagued together to destroy us? No good can come 
from underrating their power. Our one chance of safety lies in 
humbly admitting that we can do nothing against them. This is 
the attitude our Lord desires to see in us. If, then, our own reason 
and experience do not convince us, let us recall our Lord's words. 
It was on the night of His betrayal He uttered them. He and His 
disciples had risen from the Supper-table and (as mentioned in the 
text) were making their way to the Mount of Olives when our 
Lord pointed out to them a dead branch of a vine that lay on the 
roadside. "As the branch," He said, "cannot bear fruit of itself 
unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in 
Me — for without Me you can do nothing" (John xv, 4) . Nothing, 
that is what our Lord would have us feel and intimately realize, 
"that without Him we can do nothing." For then only shall we 
ask for His help as we ought when we have convinced ourselves 
that on that help depends, in literal truth, our very salvation. 
"Unless you pray you will most certainly be lost." 

And now we go on to consider the second and more encouraging 
point. If you pray you will most certainly be saved. Of that St. 
Paul has already assured us. "Who will deliver me?" we have 
heard him cry. And we have heard, too, his confident answer, 
"The grace of God by our Lord Jesus Christ." Our Lord's word 
does not discourage him — "without Me you can do nothing." No; 
he draws the lesson Jesus would have us all draw — "With Him 33 



134 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

can do all things" (Phil, iv, 13). For Jesus does not want to cast 
us down, but to show to us clearly where our strength lies, that we 
might secure the victory. To feel that, is to understand what the 
old man whom we thought of in the beginning meant when he said, 
"Jesus looks at me." So far we have looked at Jesus. We have 
seen Him as our leader in this warfare. He puts Satan to flight 
when the evil one dares to tempt Him. "Begone, Satan," we have 
heard Him say, "the Lord thy God shalt thou adore and him only 
shalt thou serve." He conquers the world. "Have confidence," 
He says to his followers, "I have overcome the world." He sub- 
dued the flesh — "God sending His Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh hath condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. viii, 3). And when 
we have thus considered Him — "when we have sanctified the Lord 
Jesus in our hearts," the Apostle bids, "be ye armed with the power 
of His might" (Eph. vi, 19). Oh, wonderful words of the great 
Apostle. Well might he cry, "I can do all things," for he realized 
that God had, in giving us Jesus, given us with Him the Power of 
His infinite might. In a perfect ecstasy of courage he exclaims, 
"If God be for us, who shall be against us." "He that spared not 
His own Son but delivered Him up for us all — how hath He not 
also with Him given us all things?" (Rom. viii, 21 sqq.). Thus 
Jesus is given to us not as our Leader only, but as our Helper, too. 
We have looked on Him and seen Him as our Leader, and now 
He looks at us ; He sees our need of His help, and shows Himself 
not merely willing but anxious to give us that help. But we must 
ask Him for it. "Ask and you shall receive" — which means, says 
St. Teresa, "that unless we ask we shall not receive." // you 
pray you will be saved. There is the one condition, but it is an 
essentially necessary one. 

Now I want to convince you of this. If I can only make you 



PRAYER 135 

pray as you ought, I should feel quite sure that by the grace of 
God this retreat had put you on the sure road to heaven. Well — 
how ought we to pray? 

The great quality that Jesus asks for in our prayers is Confidence. 
And the fault that St. James finds in those who are not heard be- 
cause they pray amiss is the want of confidence. 

So let us see how we are to pray with confidence. In the first 
place the fact that we are sinners need not make us fearful of not be- 
ing heard. It is true that the man whom Jesus cured of his blindness 
declared to the Pharisees, "God does not hear sinners." But it is 
true only of those who actually in their prayers have no real inten- 
tion of giving up sin or of turning sincerely to God. Of such Jesus 
says, "They shall cry to Me but I will not hear them: they shall 
seek Me but they shall die in their sins" (John viii, 21). But in the 
Holy Scriptures there is nothing so clear as this, that repentant 
sinners will be heard and lovingly welcomed back by God to His 
grace and favor again. "As I live," says the Lord God, "I desire 
not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way 
and live" (Ezek. xxxiii, 11). You see, to impress us with His 
eagerness to pardon, God takes an oath by His very existence (and 
God though He is, He could take no greater oath) that He does 
not wish to condemn. No — if we are sorry for our sins we must 
have the greatest confidence that God will be merciful to us. "Come 
to Me you that labor and are burdened and I will refresh you" 
(Matt, xi, 28). "You shall pray to Me and I will hear you: you 
shall seek Me and you shall find Me when you shall seek Me with 
all your heart" (Jer. xxix, 13). If we are sincere with God then 
we shall seek Him with the confidence that wins His grace and 
pardon. 

But let us make up our minds that our confidence must rest 



136 A RETREAT FOREWOMEN IN BUSINESS 

simply on the goodness and promises of God and not on any merits 
of our own. That would be simply fatal to the efficacy of our 
prayers. "To some who trusted to themselves and despised others," 
St. Luke tells us, Jesus spoke the parable of the Pharisee and the 
publican. Because it is Jesus who utters it we should treasure this 
parable as the revelation to us of how hateful to God is pride and 
self-sufficiency. For, in spite of many good deeds, in spite of 
much external religiousness, in spite of fasting and - alms-giving, the 
Pharisee is rejected. It was pride that ruined him. He had con- 
fidence indeed, but confidence in himself. Such confidence that 
emboldened him to stand in the very presence .of God and give 
thanks that he was not as the rest of men. But the poor publican 
had no confidence in himself, he would not so much as lift up his 
eyes towards heaven, but struck his breast saying, "O God ! be mer- 
ciful to me a sinner." And we have the word of God-made Man 
for it that "he went down to his house justified rather than the 
other" (Luke xviii, 9 sqq). 

Pride, then, ruins confidence and spoils prayer, whereas humil- 
ity enables us to cast all our care on Him who hath care of us. 
"The prayer of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds" ; 
and "he will not depart till the Most High behold" (Eccl. xxxv, 
21). Our confidence must, first of all then, be humble. Next it 
must be firm. "A firmness which shows itself in an urgent persist- 
ency. There are many examples in Holy Scripture which show 
that this holy boldness that simply won't take 'no' for an answer 
but still persistently trusts in the mercy of God, seems all power- 
ful with the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour." In the 
book of Exodus, for instance, we read (xxxii, 7 sqq.) how God's 
anger was kindled against his people when they worshipped the 
golden calf. Moses was with Him in the mount receiving His 



PRAYER 137 

commandments, and God said to him, "Go, get thee down, thy people 
hath sinned." But Moses continued to pray. And God, to prove 
to us the value of this persisting confidence, deigns to appear as if He 
were struggling with the power of His servant's prayer. "See that 
this people is stiff-necked," He cries— and tthen — most wonderfully : 
"Let Me alone — that I may destroy them." And when even then 
Moses does not cease to pray, but continues begging for mercy, we 
read that "the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which He 
had spoken against His people." As if he could not resist the 
entire confidence that Moses showed in His mercy, "God is over- 
come," says St. John Chrisostom on this passage, "by the omnipo- 
tence of prayer." 

A more striking instance I could not hope to find for you — but in 
the life of our Lord there is an example of this holy persistency of 
confidence which may bring it home more clearly to us. Here is 
St. Matthew's account (xv, 22) : "A woman of Canaan crying out, 
said to Him, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David — my 
daughter is grievously troubled by a devil. Who answered her not 
a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying: 'Send 
her away, for she crieth after us.' And He, answering, said : 'I was 
not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.' But 
she came and adored Him, saying : 'Lord, help me.' Who answering, 
said : 'It is not good to take the bread of the children and to cast it 
to the dogs.' But she said : 'Yea, Lord, for the whelps also eat of 
the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters.' Then Jesus, 
answering, said to her : 'O woman, great is thy faith, be it done to 
thee as thou wilt'; and her daughter was cured from that hour." 
Our hearts must be stone cold if they do not beat with gratitude to 
Jesus for this wonderful instance of the power of prayer. Every- 
thing apparently is against the poor woman. The disciples lose 



138 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

their temper with her and try to drive her off; Jesus is perfectly 
cold and indifferent. When she persists, so unlike Himself He is 
even rough with her. He cannot work miracles for pagans — the 
bread is for the children, not for dogs. That He should have said 
that is a convincing proof of the value he sets on persistent confi- 
dence. It cost Him more to utter it, you may be sure, than it hurt 
her to hear it. And then when, in spite of it all, she still persists, 
He allows Himself to appear as if carried out of Himself with 
admiration. 

"Oh, woman !" He cries in utter astonishment, "great is thy faith I" 
And at once He gives her all she asks for. 

It is God's loving Providence over us that allows our confidence 
in Him to be at times thus severely tried. Taken as this good 
woman takes them, such trials but tighten our hold on the strong 
hand of Jesus and give us courage in the fight. And we need this 
courage in our life-long fight for heaven. "When thou enterest 
the service of God, prepare thy soul for tribulation" (Eccl. ii, i). 
Of St. Paul God distinctly said, "I will show him how great things 
he must suffer for my name's sake" (Acts ix, 16). And St. Paul 
was equal to the trial. "I am appointed a preacher and an apostle 
and a teacher," he says. "For which cause I also suffer these 
things: but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed" 
(2 Tim. i, 12). Trials, rebuffs and disappointments, then, should 
not rob us of our confidence. We should rather regard them as 
opportunities allowed us by God for increasing it — and urging us 
to pray more fervently. When a nun complained to Mother Mar- 
garet that her pain was so great that she was tempted to think 
there was no use praying, that God had abandoned her, the beautiful 
answer she received was this : "How near must Jesus be to you 
when you can feel the pricking of the crown of thorns." The cloud 



PRAYER 139 

of sorrow you so bitterly resent may be the very means God makes 

use of to hide His nearer approach to your soul. 
"Halts by me that footfall- 
Is my gloom, after all, 
Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly? 

Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest, 

I am He whom thou seekest. 

Thou dravest love from thee — who dravest me." — (Thompson.) 

Nor, lastly, should the routine of our daily prayers cause our 
confidence to slacken. It is the danger that threatens our daily 
prayers that they should become mechanical. Do be warned against 
it. Once prayer becomes merely mechanical it is easily dropped 
altogether, perhaps never to be resumed again. Behold the begin- 
ning of nearly every spiritual ruin. Put your heart in your prayers. 
Remember prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God — 
that and nothing else. You may read or recite beautiful words 
to God all day long, but unless your mind has been thinking of God, 
and your heart has been loving God, whatever else you may have 
done you certainly have not been praying. You need your daily 
prayers for your daily conflict. The devil, the world and the 
flesh do not grow slack. Without God's help you are sure to fall. 
That help He gives you daily when you ask Him for it daily in the 
prayer He has taught you — Give us this day our daily bread. 
And with that help you can conquer, for "with Him you can do all 
things." 

There, then, is a safe way to heaven — if you pray you will be 
saved. Make it the great resolution of your retreat, to be faithful 
to your daily prayers. Not long or wearisome prayers, but prayers 



i 4 o A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

that are fervent, humble, confident and persevering. It is precisely 
of Faithfulness in these things that God will say to you in the 
end, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Because thou hast 
been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things, 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matt, xxv, 23). 



HOLY COMMUNION 141 



XII. HOLY COMMUNION 

"He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me." — John vi, 58. 

SYNOPSIS. — To fulfil the purpose of our creation, we must aim at being 
Christ-like, not in externals but in the spirit. We need the help of heaven 
to accomplish this, and this help is especially given us in Holy Com- 
munion. The obstacles to our becoming a child of God classed under 
four heads: Sin, Selfishness, Depression, and Discouragement. 

Jesus, from His Tabernacle, looks at us, and, seeing our need, 

gives us grace — as we have considered — in answer to prayer. For 

that grace we can never be sufficiently thankful. On it our salvation 

depends; for whilst without it we can do nothing, with it we can 

do all things. Praise and thanks are due to God, then, for this 

wondrous gift of grace: but an even greater gift now claims our 

gratitude, viz.: 

And that a higher gift than grace 

Should flesh and blood refine : • 

God's presence and His very Self, 

And essence all Divine. 

— Newman. 

Yes, He sees in our weak and fallen nature our utter need of the 
"Bread that is the food of the strong." He Himself has declared it. 
"Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, 
you shall not have life in you" (St. John vi). Christ is the true 
Life of the soul. "I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in Me," must 
in due measure be the cry of every soul that is not to perish. A 
Christian who is not even aiming at that may truly be said "to have 
received his soul in vain," and in view of his baptismal promises "to 
have sworn deceitfully to his neighbor" (Ps. 23). He belongs to 
that drifting, helpless "generation that sets not their heart aright, 
whose spirit is not faithful to God" (Ps. Jj). 



142 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

To fulfil the purpose of our creation, to make good the promises 
of our baptism, we must aim at being Christ-like. No half measures 
will do. To compromise is to attempt what Christ has said is im- 
possible — the serving of God and Mammon: "For he that is not 
with Me is against Me." Our aim must be nothing less than to be 
animated by the Spirit of Christ, and for this Christ gives Himself 
to us in the blessed Eucharist. "He that eateth Me, the same also 
shall live by Me" (John vi). Our chance of heaven is secure in 
proportion as we earnestly make use of this power to imitate Christ, 
who declared Himself for us all — the Way, the Truth, and the Life 
(John xiv, 6). Now, what do we mean when we speak about the 
imitation of Christ? It is really to be very much regretted that 
piety does not seem always to include in its wide embrace of many 
most excellent gifts and virtues — a saving sense of humor. 
Through the want of it men and women of highest sanctity, of the 
straightest morality, of the most unbending regularity, occasionally 
afford by their conduct food for much reprehensible hilarity on the 
part of the more profane of their acquaintance — to talk platitudes. 

In stained glass attitudes, as the song has it, seems to be their 
idea of imitating Christ and His saints. They aim at the ex- 
ternals — the manner, the pose, the expressions — which they sup- 
pose to have been characteristic of their models, and are satisfied 
if they succeed in reproducing them. Whereas if Burns's prayer 
could be heard in their behalf : 

O, wad the Power the giftie gie us 
To see ourselves as ithers see us ! 

they would understand at once that their success was but a joy to 
the frivolous. God does not want that — God regards the heart. 
That is why he rejected the Jews. "These people honor Me with 
their lips, but their hearts are far from Me." "The kingdom of 



HOLY COMMUNION . 143 

God," He tells them, "is within you." And we must see that interior 
kingdom "first, last, and all through." "Seek ye first the kingdom 
of God and His Justice, and all those things shall be added unto 
you." Our work is to watch and pray that God's kingdom may 
come into our hearts, and then the outward bearing, the manner, or 
even the mannerisms of Christ's saints may be added if God sees 
it to be expedient. Aim at acquiring the spirit, and let that spirit 
find, later on, by God's guidance, its true expression. "They want 
to begin with the feet," said poor St. Francis de Sales, bothered by 
the persistent petition of his nuns to be discalced, "and I want to 
begin with the head." 

The answer to our question, then, is that to imitate Christ: to 
become Christ-like, means not to adopt what we suppose to have 
been the external bearing or manner of Christ, but to acquire the 
Spirit of Christ. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is 
none of Him" (Rom. viii, 9). We must strive to acquire it. And 
in what does it precisely consist ? Of that we have an explicit pro- 
nouncement of St. Paul : "And because you are sons, God hath sent 
the Spirit of His Son into your heart, crying Abba, Father" (Gal. iv, 
6) . That is the Spirit of Christ, the reasoned conviction that, being 
the children of God, we must look up and lift up our hearts, crying, 
"Our Father, who art in Heaven." That our lives must be so 
fashioned as to give proof that "we reckon we have not here a 
lasting city, but we look for one that is to come, and that men, 
seeing our good work, may glorify our Father who is in Heaven. 
That is our work, as it was the work of Christ. That is why we are 
placed in this world — to give testimony to the great truth of the 
Paternity of God. "For this was I born," says Christ, "for this 
came I into the world, that I might give testimony of the truth" 
(John xviii, 37). 



144 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

We come then to two conclusions : First, that it is necessary for 
us to imitate Christ; and, second, that that imitation consists in 
acquiring the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit, that is, of a child of God. 
Unless you become as children you shall not enter into the kingdom 
of heaven. 

Now, though it may seem easy enough when we hear it put to us 
pleasantly to be a child of God, we shall find it a work of great diffi- 
culty to carry out in practise. We were made to love God, it is true, 
and "our hearts can never rest till they rest in Him." Nevertheless 
our nature is fallen and the concupiscence of the eye, the concu- 
piscence of the flesh and the pride of life, find much in the world to 
satisfy them, much that they would willingly cling to. It is only 
by a sustained effort that we can think of God and love God, and 
for that effort itself we need help. To live as a child of God is then 
a necessary ideal of a Christian, but it is an ideal that is really be- 
yond us. 

Ah ! but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's Heaven for? 

— Browning. 

We need the help of heaven. And my point is that in Holy 
Communion heaven gives us that help. Nearly all spiritual failures 
come from not realizing that when a man makes an effort to live as a 
child of God. He succeeds for a time, then he fails. He tries 
again, and fails again. As long as he remains persuaded that he 
can succeed by his own efforts he bravely perseveres. But repeated 
failures cannot but tell on his resolution. Slowly but surely the 
conviction gathers that it is too much for him and that it is use- 
less trying. Then, alas ! he settles down to a lower level and drifts 
into a spiritual listlessness ; or, if the passions be strong, into a life 
of reckless sinfulness. The root of the trouble is that he does not 
recognize where the strength really lies. If we could only persuade 



HOLY COMMUNION 145 

ourselves once for all that there is power in Holy Communion, then 
would our lackadaisical desires take their courage in both hands 
and set out securely for victory. "To them that received Him, to 
them He gave power to become the children of God" (St. John i). 
If this is true of those who receive Him in faith, a fortiori is it 
true of those who receive Him in Holy Communion. I want most 
earnestly to persuade you of this. You will never strive as you 
ought to be a child of God unless you feel sure it can be done ; and 
you will not feel sure it can be done unless you are convinced that 
the devout reception of Holy Communion will do it for you. 
Nothing, then, can be of greater service to your soul than this con- 
viction. Let us face the situation then quite frankly together. We 
can acknowledge fully the difficulties, once we are persuaded that 
they can be overcome. 

Well, then, what are the difficulties? It is hard to fix them into 
watertight compartments, since they are all so closely united to 
one another, but that we might get the full measure of their worth, 
let us class them under the four heads of Sin, Selfishness, De- 
pression, and Discouragement. Those are the obstacles to our 
becoming children of God; and Holy Communion is, I say, the 
remedy. In Holy Communion we receive the Body, Blood, Soul 
and Divinity of Christ, and to receive it with true desire is to re- 
ceive "power to become a child of God." 

I. Well, then, let us go thoroughly into the matter. I have put 
down the first obstacle as Sin. Actual present sin "divides between 
us and our God," and whilst that is on the soul there can, of course, 
be no question of being a child of God. That is obvious. And 
though the Council of Trent speaks of the Holy Communion as the 
great remedy against sin, both venial and mortal, yet it is not pre- 
cisely about that aspect of Holy Communion that I wish to speak 



146 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

here, but rather about its remedy for the maladies inflicted by sin. 
Scripture bids us: "Be not without fear for sin forgiven." To 
avoid silly scruples, let us note carefully the word "forgiven." We 
are not warned to have fear about the forgiveness itself of the sin. 
Of that, once we have done our best in Confession, we should have 
no fear. Forgiveness in that case is no longer even a matter of 
Hope — it is a matter of Faith. "I believe in the forgiveness of sin." 
But the point is that sin, even though forgiven, sometimes leaves 
its evil effects upon the soul, like some diseases, which, even 
thoughHhey be cured, leave traces of their ravages behind them. It 
is against these maladies, maladies caused by sins that have been 
fully forgiven, that we are here warned to be on our guard. 

That is the evil. That is the first of the obstacles that prevent 
our resolutely striving to be children of God. Once a man has 
sinned he can never be exactly as though he had never sinned. It 
is true, hearty and sincere repentance can not only cleanse the soul 
from guilt, but, by his humility, the sinner may make himself 
dearer to God than he was before his fall. Nevertheless, by actual 
sin concupiscence, which saints and sinners have alike, has, in his 
particular case, been strengthened enormously, and a fall becomes 
increasingly dangerously easy for him. 

There is his spiritual malady. He may have struggled long and 
arduously against that tendency ; he may have taken most stringent 
measures; he may have buoyed up his courage with the fiercest 
resolutions. All has been vain, let us suppose; the malady has 
but increased, and he is worn out with the struggle. It seems a 
mockery that he should strive any longer to be a child of God. It 
is a desperate malady then. Now that of the remedy. In the days 
of His flesh Jesus once passed through the crowd, when a woman 
troubled with a malady said within herself, "If I can but touch the 






HOLY COMMUNION itf 

hem of His garment, I shall be healed." And Jesus, turning and 
seeing her, said : "Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made 
thee whole." And the woman was made whole from that hour 
(Matt, ix, 20). For twelve years she had labored under that in- 
firmity, and after spending all her substance upon physicians found 
herself at the end of that time rather the worse, as St. Mark assures 
us. Yet the passing of Jesus gives her confidence. "If I can but 
touch the hem of His garment, I shall be healed." And in that con- 
fidence she is healed. "Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath 
made thee whole." 

Now we see our remedy. What Jesus did for the body is typical 
of what He desires to do for the soul. It is the same living Jesus 
comes to us in Holy Communion. He not merely passes near us, 
but He enters into our heart and dwells there. We can not merely 
kiss the hem of His garment but can entertain Him in our very soul. 
How is it we are not healed ? The arm of the Lord is not shortened. 
His wish to heal us has not diminished. No, the fault lies with us. 
We do not wish to be healed. We are afraid of being taken at our 
word. So we do not speak to Him from our heart. Oh, surely, if 
you did, what happened to that woman would happen spiritually 
to you. And Jesus, seeing your confidence and courage, would say 
to you too : "Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee 
whole." 

II. Selfishness is the shadow of sin. It ever follows it. In its 
last analysis sin is preferring self to God : I will not serve, but will 
myself be as God, knowing good and evil, and deciding right and 
wrong in my own way. It is its very contradictory, the spirit 
of cheerful self-surrender which must ever be characteristic of the 
true child of God. "What wilt thou have me to do?" is all the 
generous soul seeks to know. Whereas the selfish soul seeks to 



148 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

know not what God wills, but grudgingly what it can do or avoid 
doing without being punished. "No, you shall not surely die," was 
an appeal to Eve's selfishness, and it succeeded. Eve ceased to be 
a child of God when she ceased to fear and reverence His will, 
and yielded to the temptation to think only of her own safety. That 
is the evil — self-seeking. And what is the remedy? We receive it 
when we receive in Holy Communion the Spirit of the Blood of 
Christ. There is essentially the spirit of generosity. It was poured 
out; it was sacrificed; it was delivered until there was not one 
drop of it left in that torn and lifeless body. "There came forth 
blood mingled with water" when the spear opened His sacred side, 
to show us He had not one drop of blood left to shed for us — that's 
generosity. One drop was enough to save a million worlds, and 
He shed every drop for each individual soul. "He loved me and 
delivered Himself for me." 

To a soul that desires to be a generous child of God, then, the 
means is open: Receive the Blood of Christ and with it the spirit 
of generosity. The devil has no power with a truly generous soul. 
The devil's power lies in his reasoning with us. Eve, as we have 
seen, listened to him and fell. But the soul that has drunk in the 
Spirit of the Precious Blood is too generous to dally with a temp- 
tation that might involve her loyalty to the heavenly Father. 

Oh ! to be sprinkled from the wells 

Of Christ's own Precious Blood excels 

Earth's best and highest bliss. 

The ministers of wrath divine 

Hurt not the happy hearts that shine 

With those red drops of His. 

— Faber. 

III. When our Lord's body lay dead upon the Cross, His soul 
we believe descended into that part of hell called Limbo. There 
the saints of the Old Law were awaiting His coming with eager 



HOLY COMMUNION 149 

longing. They were not in torment; but their happiness could not 
be complete while they were denied the joy of the Beatific Vision, 
and suddenly their prison house is inundated with the splendors of 
the glorious and triumphant soul of Jesus and their beings are 
thrilled with joy unutterable as He descends among them. "This 
day has salvation come into the house," so it was said to Zachaeus, 
so it could have been said to the saints in Limbo, so it can be said 
to each soul that receives its Lord devoutly in Holy Communion. 
"Oh, Father, he gave me joy," was the only account the grateful 
Tobias could at first give of the angeFs visit. But in Holy Com- 
munion we receive the Lord of Angels, the source ever of their 
happiness. Let us understand our privilege that we may use it. 
God can give us happiness. "I am thy reward exceeding great." 
But we must seek it. "The Lord is food to the soul that seeketh 
Him." "Therefore we must taste and see how sweet is the Lord." 
That is, we must desire to find our happiness in God, otherwise we 
shall not find it. 

Let us understand this well. Happiness of some sort we must 
have. We can no more help desiring to be happy than we can help 
existing. They go* together. Puritanism, which made happiness 
sinful, failed, because it was an unnatural religion. But now if 
we give up the happiness which the world offers to those who 
gratify their passion or their pride, we must seek it in God, for 
there is nowhere else to seek it. Souls who give up the worldly 
pleasures and yet will not seek their happiness in God, make them- 
selves miserable and get religion into bad odor. "When you fast," 
says our blessed Lord, "be not of the hypocritic sad. For they dis- 
figure their faces that they may appear to men to fast. Amen, I 
say to you, they have received their reward. But thou, when 
thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear 



150 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

not to men to fast, but to thy Father, who is in secret, and thy 
Father who seeth a secret will repay thee" (Matt, vi, 16). 

There is the secret of the saints : They were as little elated with 
the praise of the world as they were cast down by its censure. But 
they did care for the praise of God. That they really soufght. And 
though they sought it in secret, they really found it and understood 
by experience that God was their reward exceeding great. Let us 
follow their example, for in this we can easily do so. It is the 
devil's way when he cannot make a soul give up the service of God 
to try to make that soul unhappy in God's service. Well, now don't 
let him succeed in doing so with you. Learn of the saints to seek 
happiness in God, and remember that when you receive your Saviour 
in Holy Communion you receive the Source of all the joy and hap- 
piness and can have that happiness for the asking. 

It is worth while for your own sake. It is worth while for the 
sake of your neighbors. Just as people are frozen off by a frigid 
severity or a vinegary austerity, so they can be won by the sunny 
brightness of the true children of God. That is how the saints 
have succeeded. That is how the faith of the early Christians was 
such a glorious triumph. They had many more hardships to suffer 
than we have, but the thought that God was with them made them 
rejoice to suffer for His sake. They knew nothing of that sour- 
ness which some people mistake for religion nowadays, but they 
served God in happiness and learned of the Apostles to rejoice in 
the Lord always. Here is that great Apostle's own account of 
them: "As dying, and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; 
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; 
as having nothing and possessing all things. . . . For you are the 
temple of the living God, as God saith: "I will dwell in them and 
be their God ; and they shall be My people" (2. Cor. vi, 9)]* 



HOLY COMMUNION 151 

Have we not this same reason for happiness as they had, and 
does not God make good this same promise, too, in our behalf when- 
ever we receive Him in Holy Communion ? "I will dwell in them 
and be their God, and they shall be My people." 

But up like fire he started: and as oft 

As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees 

So many a time he vaulted up again — 

Till Gareth panted hard : and his great heart 

Foredooming all his trouble was in vain, 

Labored within him, for he seemed as one 

That all in later sadder life begins 

To war against ill uses of a life, 

But these from all his life arise and cry, 

"Thou hast made us lords and canst not put us down." 

In this description of Gareth's fight with the mysterious Grant 
at the ford, Tennyson thus depicts incidentally the dismay and 
helpless terror of the soul brought to bay by its passions and having 
to own their lordship over him. Of himself he cannot conquer. 
Up to till now buoyed by false hopes, he thought he had but really 
to will it: set his teeth and exert his powers, and victory was as- 
sured. Now he knows victory is impossible. It is a terrible 
moment, and unless the soul remembers it is not alone it may be 
a fatal moment. "But if Christ be with us, who shall be against us ?" 
For what power can withstand the strength of the might of Him 
who is almighty? In Holy Communion we receive the power of 
His Divinity. Think of that. Had we gazed without faith on the 
Body of Christ as it lay buried in the Sepulchre we would have 
shrunk with horror from the sight. It was the body of One struck 
by God and afflicted, of the Victim of Sin, for the "Lord had laid 
on Him the iniquities of us, by whose stripes we were healed," of a 
worm and woman. And yet after three days that same Body — 
lifeless, torn, bruised and bloodless, is raised and clothed with such 



152 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

transcendent glory, with such ravishing loveliness, that to gaze 
upon it will form one of the chief joys of Paradise for all eternity. 
He had gloriously kept His word: "Destroy this temple, and in 
three days I will build it up again." And how has He kept it? 
What power had wrought this wondrous change? What power 
could have done it save the Infinite Power of God's Divinity ? And 
that same power is given to you in Holy Communion. No matter 
what the past has been, no matter what terrible havoc sin has 
wrought in your soul, you can rise to the glory of a child of God, 
if you but make use of the power that is freely given to you in 
Holy Communion. You have tried and failed, maybe, in your own 
power; rely on that strength no longer, but do not despair; do not 
for a moment be discouraged ; arm yourself with the power of His 
Might, and all will be well with you. This is not my exhortation 
merely: it is the inspired exhortation of the great Apostle of the 
Gentiles, that we should model our rising from Him or His 
Resurrection from the dead and, relying on the power He will 
give us, resolve to persevere to the end in the life of grace that He 
has won for us. 

"Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no 
more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that 
He died to sin He died once, but in that He liveth He liveth unto 
God ; so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto 
God, in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. vi, 9). Thus will the 
Divinity of Christ enable us to overcome this last obstacle in the 
way of our becoming children of God. It differs from what we 
considered as the first obstacle, as effect differs from its cause. In 
the first we thought of the spiritual malady of sin it itself; in this 
last of the discouragement which the persistence of that malady 
induces in the soul of one who is striving to become a child of 



HOLY COMMUNION 153 

God. But for both evils as well as for all others Holy Communion 1 
is the Divinely appointed remedy. 

To sum up then : Holy Communion will help us to gain the grand 
and necessary object of all our spiritual striving, viz.: to become 
a child of God. But it is essential for us to be fully persuaded of 
this great truth, otherwise we shall not approach the altar with 
that longing desire which alone can securely obtain it for us. And 
so we have thought the matter over carefully together, and have 
seen how truly Holy Communion can help us to welcome all 
the obstacles that stand in the way of our attaining this object of 
our spiritual desires, for the Body of Christ cures the soul of its 
maladies; the Blood of Christ destroys its selfishness; the Soul of 
Christ dissipates its gloom and the Divinity of Christ arms it with 
invincible courage. If we really desire it, then here we find all 
we need to enable us to become and to persevere to the end of 
our life — a child of God. Here is the word fulfilled : "To them 
that received Him to them He gave power to become the children 
of God." Here, finally, does He make good His promises of 
giving us His Spirit, the Spirit whereby we cry Abba, Father : "As 
the living Father hath sent Me, and as I live by the Father, so he 
that eateth Me the same also shall live of Me" (St. John vi, 58). 



154 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 



XIII. OUR LADY 

SYNOPSIS.— I. woman behold thy son. What it cost Jesus to make Mary 
the Mother of Sinners should convince us of His desire to give us a 
Spiritual Mother for our soul. 

II. behold thy mother. Mary will assuredly hear the word of Jesus: 
but do we hear His word to us? The danger of coldness to Mary. 
To avoid it we consider: 
J. her greatness, a) In the Immaculate Conception. 

b) In the Divine Maternity. 

c) In her constant intercourse with Jesus. 

d) In her charge of the Infant Christ. 

e) In her Assumption. 

f) In her Triumph in Heaven. 

2. Her Faithfulness lies in her remembering that all are her children, 
and in praying for us. 

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother. When Jesus, therefore, 
had seen his mother and that disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to 
his mother : Woman behold thy son. After that he saith to the disciple : 
Behold thy mother. — John 19, 25. 

St. Luke tells us that when our Lord was once entering the city 
of Nairn there met him a sad funeral procession. For a dead man 
was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a 
widow and a great multitude of the city was with her (Luke vii, 11). 
We may imagine our Lord standing aside with His disciples out 
of respect for the dead to let that procession go by. And there 
would come first the friends and relations of the dead boy — then 
the simple bier on which was laid the body, and then all in tears the 
poor, weeping mother. The sight of her intense grief had moved 
a great multitude of that city to show their compassion for her. It 
was a sight that went straight to the Heart of Jesus. Without being 
asked, without requiring, as in His other miracles, an act of Faith 



OUR LADY 155 

in His power, He determines to relieve her anguish. He leaves 
His disciples. He goes to her and, being moved with mercy 
towards her, He said to her, "Woman, weep not." It was as 
though the sight of her tears was more than He could bear — for 
never did there beat in human breast a heart more tender than the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. For a moment doubtless the woman 
would be astonished — perhaps indignant. Why should she not 
weep. Surely she had cause enough. There, before her, all that 
she loved or cared for most in this world lay dead upon that bier. 
Who was this stranger that would thus address her? But when 
looking up through her streaming tears her eyes met those of Jesus 
gazing down upon her with infinite tenderness and compassion, her 
feelings must have changed to awe and confidence as He leaves 
her, and she watches Him, Oh how wistfully, as He walks to those 
who are carrying the body and bids them stand. And then laying 
back the pall, she sees Him take her boy's hand in His, and with that 
voice with which He spake as one having power — which the devils 
hear and tremble — He cries, "Young man I say to thee arise." 
And he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And He gave 
him to his mother. 

I want you to think of that scene. I want to convince you of the 
love of Jesus for those in sorrow ! For we have not a High Priest 
who cannot have compassion on our infirmities (Heb. iv, 15). For 
now I want to remind you of another scene where He acts so dif- 
ferently. For there was a time when He saw a poor, weeping 
woman standing at the deathside of her only son — and she, too, 
was a widow and her son the fairest amongst the children of men, 
and He worked no miracle to relieve her. He saw her there wit- 
nessing the dread butchery whereby that Son was done to death 
with every species of cruelty and injustice, and yet He had no 



156 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

word of comfort or sympathy for her. "There stood by the cross 
of Jesus His mother." 

Now why was this? How was it that He who could not bear 
to see the tears of the widow of Nairn could look on the heart of 
His mother pierced through and through with Simeon's sword and 
say no word of comfort to relieve her? Did He love her less than 
the widow of Nairn? Did He, because she was His mother, think 
He might be indifferent to her grief ? Oh, such thoughts are cruel 
blasphemies against our Lord. Never did a son love his mother as 
Jesus loved Mary. We must look elsewhere for an explanation of 
this mystery. For mystery indeed it is, or better, perhaps, one 
phase of that mystery of the infinite love of God for the souls of 
sinners that meets us at every turn when meditating on the ways 
of God with men. The explanation which pleases me most is that 
it is part of His Father's business, of the work of saving souls, 
which by His Father's will He had come on earth to do. Already 
it had cost Mary one of her great dolours, and now it is to cost 
her another. 

At her knee and by her side in the home at Nazareth, and after 
in His public life, He had by His human experience learnt the value 
of the helpful tenderness and sympathetic pity of a mother's love. 
His compassion for sinners, His wish to do His Father's will and 
secure their salvation prompted the desire to provide them with 
such a love. In no human heart could such depths of love be found, 
as He knew well, as in that of His own dear mother. But how 
could she ever love sinners? Saints there have been like St. 
Stanislaus or St. Aloysius who have fainted at the presence of even 
venial sin. Their shrinking dread, their paralizing horror of sin 
could never have equaled that of Mary. They had fallen under the 
stain of at least original sin from which Mary had even been free. 



OUR LADY 157 

How then could Mary the Immaculate not only not shrink from 
venial sin, but actually learn to love the greatest of grievous sin- 
ners with a mother's love ? The answer is : "There stood by the 
Cross of Jesus His mother." There did she learn her lesson of 
loving sinners with a mother's love. Jesus' sufferings and death are 
the evidence of His love. Greater love than this no man hath that 
he lay down his life for his friends. And it was His will that Mary 
should stand by his Cross and witness His sufferings and death 
and learn from them His love. She was to be witness herself. The 
report of others could not convey the same impression. No, she 
was herself to count the wounds that the cruel scourge had made; 
to see the red blood drop unheeded on the hard rock; to hear the 
hammer fall, as blow by blow the long, rough nails were driven 
home and hand and foot secured to the wood of the tree of shame. 
She, with her own eyes, with her own ears, was to witness every 
incident of that long drawn agony of three bitter hours of the 
crucifixion. The pains that racked His bruised limbs and torn 
flesh with ceaseless agony from the nails, the crown of thorns, and 
the hard wood of the cross itself, the thirst occasioned by His loss 
of blood, the malignant triumph of His relentless foes, their blas- 
phemies, their jeerings and their mockeries. And hardest of all 
for her to witness, the abandonment by His Heavenly Father. 
Without a murmur had He borne the insults of His enemies — ■ 
when He was reviled He did not revile, when He suffered He 
threatened not, but delivered Himself to Him that judged Him 
unjustly (i Pet. ii, 23). Nay, she had heard His prayer for them: 
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." But to 
lose His Father's help seemed more than even His great Heart 
could endure. "My God, my God," he cried, "why hast Thou for- 
saken me?" 



158 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Thus, then, at the foot of the Cross did Mary witness what 
Jesus suffered for sinners. There was her tender soul pierced with 
the sword of Simeon. And there whilst she was actual witness to 
it all, whilst her Son's sufferings were being by her tender sym- 
pathy repeated in her own breaking heart, then it was, and not till 
then, that Jesus made her the mother of sinners. "Woman," he 
said to her, "behold thy son." Not St. John alone, but all for 
whom He was dying; "behold thy children," he in effect said to 
her, "I make them over to thee. Thou hast to love them with a 
mother's love; to care for them and pity them and succor them 
as only a mother can. See how I love them. Look in your own 
heart, see there my sufferings; see in those sufferings the evidence 
of My love and copy your love* on mine." Oh marvellous love of 
Jesus for the souls of sinful men. That He should provide them 
with such a mother and at such a cost! No pang of His passion 
save the abandonment of His Father was so hard to bear as the 
piercing of His mother's soul. Yet He endured to afflict her that 
we might have in her a spiritual mother who would love our souls 
with a love only less than His own. Does He not, dear children, 
seem in this to have loved our souls with a love more feeling and 
tender than even the natural love He bore to His own blessed 
mother? When as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 
v, 8), and when as yet we were sinners Mary became our mother. 

We should see then that by this word to Mary : "Woman, behold 
thy son," Jesus called her to fulfill a high and important office in 
the work of our salvation. He looks at us, and as He gives us the 
grace of prayer, the Holy Communion, so now He gives us a 
definite and special gift in Mary. From that word on Calvary Mary 
is ever to regard us as her children. She is never likely to forget 
that word; but we prevent her fulfilling her office if we refuse to 



OUR LADY 159 

regard her as our mother. There is the real danger. It is espe- 
cially threatening in this country. Once it was Mary's dowry — 
renowned throughout Christendom for its devotion to Mary; but, 
alas ! one of its most intolerant bigotries at present is its hatred for 
the name of the Holy Mother of God. It is so strange a phenom- 
enon too that one can only explain it by regarding it as a kind of 
obsession. They believe in Christ — there is hardly a nation that 
is so open in its loyalty to its Saviour and His Holy Word. How 
can you account for it then that the mother of the Man Christ 
Jesus is held in such contempt and derision? In that Bible of 
which they make a boast it is written that Mary said, "Behold, from 
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Now they loudly 
boast that at any rate they don't belong to such generations. To 
call her blessed they will tell you is to do God a dishonor and to 
interfere with the worship that is due to Him alone. I wonder 
how these Bible Christians account for the fact that this word of 
Mary is in reply to one who called her blessed under the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Ghost as St. Luke tells us (i, 41 ) . When "Elizabeth 
heard the voice of salutation of Mary — she was rilled with the Holy 
Ghost and she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed art 
thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And 
whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to 
me." If the Holy Ghost inspired Elizabeth to call Mary blessed 
(and that, too, had been the word the angel from heaven had been 
inspired to utter) I wonder who inspires them to say she is not 
blessed. As for God's honor, surely the Holy Ghost can be re- 
garded as a safe custodian of that. 

But in spite of its utter stupidity this hatred of Mary is so common 
and rife amongst our neighbors that there is some danger of our 
being so afraid of hurting their sensitiveness that we prune down 



160 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

the expressions of our love for Mary almost to the vanishing point. 
Let us be on our guard against it. We need not be aggressive of 
course, but let us remember that not to love Mary as a mother 
and, when necessary, to show we do so, is to make very light of 
one of God's greatest gifts to us. He honored her Himself, surely. 
For thirty years he was subject to her. He knows her worth, and at 
the cost of greatest pain and agony both to Himself and to her He 
has made her our mother. And after all that, are we to be ashamed 
of her because some ignorant man or woman scoffs at her? Re- 
member Father Faber's beautiful hymn: 

But scornful men have coldly said 

Thy love was leading me from God ; 
And yet in this I did but tread 

The very path my Saviour trod. 
They know but little of thy worth, 

Who speak these heartless words to me, 
For what did Jesus love on earth 

One half so tenderly as thee? 

So then in the spirit of grateful love to Jesus let us meditate on 
the gift He has given us and consider the second part of that word 
of His, "Behold thy mother." She is worthy of our holiest and 
deepest meditation. After the sacred humanity of Jesus there is no 
more perfect creation than the soul of Mary. She is the master- 
piece of God's creative power. 

Mary's sanctity began where that of God's greatest saints has 
ended. "Her foundations are in the holy mountains." Man has 
reached his highest perfection when he has won back to the estate 
from which he had fallen. In the beginning "man's heart was 
right." His mind and affections rested naturally on his Creator. 



OUR LADY 161 

He held continual converse with his God in the garden. But dis- 
order came with the fall, and only by an effort and for but a short 
time can man fix his thoughts or his love on God. After years of 
struggle with their evil passions, Saints have at last regained some- 
thing of the ground that has been lost. They have subdued their 
passions and bowed their wills in almost continual obedience to 
God. That is their highest estate, I say, their loftiest perfection. 
Now where they ended, Mary began. She was born free from 
original sin and that sin's consequences. No cloud of ignorance 
obscured her understanding, no prompting of concupiscence dis- 
turbed the unruffled serenity of her heart. She ever was as Adam 
was before the fall, and as God's greatest saints have been in their 
ultimate sanctity. With the Psalmist, though in higher sense than 
he or any man could utter it, she could say, "To Thee from the 
dawn have I watched." From the dawn of her existence. From 
the first moment of her Immaculate Conception she looked to God. 
It was her singular privilege to be able to think of God and thus 
at the beginning to give her heart to Him. This power was indeed 
a privilege, but the using that privilege was her merit. We, too, 
have privileges and graces, not of course as great as Mary's, but 
level with our capacities, and the pity is we do not use them. We 
neglect God's grace and pay no heed to His inspirations. Here 
then is Mary's own work. She profited by the great powers that 
God had given her. From the first the grace within Her had not 
been void. With the full powers of her mind she thought of God, 
and with every affection of her heart she clung to Him. And thus 
it was that this exact correspondence meriting for her fresh grace 
to know God better and to love Him more, and by ever fresh cor- 
respondence meriting new and ever greater graces, she reached at 
last that height of sanctity that God, having determined to become 



162 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

man, found her of all His creatures the most worthy to be His 
mother. This it is which gives such significance to the Church's 
Easter hymn, where Mary is declared to have merited to bear her 
Saviour. Thus the Immaculate Conception was a privilege which 
Mary could not merit. It was necessarily a free gift of God. But 
by corresponding with the graces of that sublime privilege Mary 
in a certain true sense, recognized by the Church's hymn, merited 
to be the Mother of God. It is moreover an added glory to our 
great Queen that God in conferring that surpassing dignity on 
Mary deigned to make it conditional on her consent. The angel 
has to reassure her first with regard to her humility, and then as 
to her virginity: and then he awaits her answer. Mary — think of 
it — Mary could have refused; God of course could have saved us 
in a different way. But He would not have saved us as He has 
done without the consent of Mary. The whole scheme of our Re- 
demption — to put it that way — hung for a moment on the lips of 
Mary. All was in suspense until that humble Virgin bowed her 
head and said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto 
me according to Thy word" (Lk. i, 38). Thus then shall she be 
honored, whom the King delighted to honor. Oh that men should 
read their Bibles and believe these things and then speak con- 
temptuously of Mary. Surely we must be right in supposing it an 
obsession. And if Mary's sanctity and love were great beyond all 
thought before her Child was born, to what sublime heights of 
perfection must this love have attained during the three and thirty 
years she spent in His close companionship. From the moment she 
brought forth her Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and 
laid Him in the manger, knelt and adored Him as her God, then 
took Him to her arms and kissed Him as her Child, to that dark 
hour when the world and sin had done its worst against Him and 



OUR LADY 163 

his poor broken and lifeless Body was restored to her arms and 
found there its last resting place where He had found the first, 
surely every day and every moment of every day must have brought 
with it some fresh incentive to love, some new fuel for the divine 
fire that was consuming her. And if He advanced in wisdom, age 
and grace before all men, surely beyond all others in the immacu- 
late heart of her who saw Him most and loved Him best of all. 

And now the days of that close union are over. He ascends to 
heaven and she is left to tend the infancy of His early Church as 
once she tended His own. The days of her pilgrimage were pro- 
longed and she refused not the labor — but her heart was where her 
treasure was in heaven. And she sighed for the time of her de- 
liverance. Twelve long years went slowly by and then the sum- 
mons came, "Behold, my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make 
haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one and come. For the winter 
is now past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared 
in our land. Arise and come" (Cf. Canticle ii, 10). "Come from 
Libanus; come, thou shalt be crowned" (C. iv, 8). And like a pure 
and spotless dove, body and soul Mary rises to meet her Saviour 
and her God. 

Oh, look, you angels, look, 
How beautiful she is. 
See Jesus bears her up, 
Her hand is locked in His. 
Oh, who can tell the height 
Of this sweet mother's bliss ? 

— Faber. 

And the angels part their adoring ranks and gaze and gaze witfi 
ever increasing wonder and love as Jesus leads this marvel of His 



164 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

grace higher and higher to the great white throne of God. "Who 
is this," they cry, "that cometh up from the desert flowing with 
delights leaning upon her beloved (C. 85). Who is this that as^ 
cends like a cloud of incense breathing ail the powders of perfume 
(C. 6). Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair 
as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array" 
(Cf. C. vi, 9). And at last the throne of the eternal King is 
reached. "And the King arose to greet his mother, and a throne is 
set at the King's right hand and the mother of the King sat down." 
In her own right and title she takes her place close to the throne 
of God, crowned the everlasting Queen of heaven, with none save 
God above her, and all that is less than God immeasurably beneath 
her — the highest and greatest of all God's creatures — the Mother 
of the Son, the spouse of the Holy Ghost, the Queen of angels, the 
help of Christians, our tainted nature's solitary boast: 

What mortal tongue can sing thy praise, 

Oh Mother of the Lord ? 
To angels only it belongs 

Thy glory to record. 

For hers is the triumph not of earth, but of heaven. The tri- 
umph of God the Father, for He in whose sight the angels them- 
selves are not pure could gaze upon the Immaculate Soul of 
His chosen daughter and exclaim, "Thou art all fair, oh my beloved, 
and there is no spot in thee." Triumph for God the Son, for in the 
soul of her who had given Him His human life no let or hindrance 
barred the absolute conquest of His precious Blood. Triumph for 
the Holy Ghost in that His grace had been enabled so to possess, 
elevate, strengthen and refine the human nature of His spouse, that, 
body and soul, she could live ever within the very fires of God's 



OUR LADY 165 

divinity and not be consumed. And triumph too for Mary, that 
she, who in her own eyes had never been aught save the lowly 
handmaid of the Lord — the least of all His creatures, should now 
be raised to the highest throne in heaven under God, and that the 
greatest angels should pay to her the glad tribute of their grateful 
praise, and in her soul for all eternity see and acknowledge the 
great things which He that is mighty had done for her. 

Triumph then for God, triumph for Mary and triumph for the 
angels — but what about ourselves ? Are we, too, really to regard it 
as a triumph? Can Mary think of us now any longer? How can 
our poor sinful souls rouse any feeling but that of horror in the 
breast of the immaculate Queen of heaven? 

And shall I lose thee then, 

Lose my sweet right to thee ? 
Ah, no ! the angels' Queen 

Man's mother still will be, 
And thou upon thy throne 

Wilt keep thy love for me. — Faber. 

Yes, in spite of her greatness and glory and distance from all sin, 
Mary will remember we are still her children. Nay, in consequence 
of that very glory, for we could say to her, were it necessary, "Not 
for thyself alone is all this glory, but for all the people." It is that 
she might plead for us with greater insistence that she is placed 
so near to the throne of her Son. It is that her prayers might have 
the greater efficacy that she has been crowned with such glory and 
honored with such surpassing dignity. It is for the sake of sinners 
that Mary is heaven's Queen. She has been appointed by God to 
pray for the people, and whilst there is still a soul to plead for help, 



:66 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Mary would fail in her office did she turn away from his petition. 
When the Israelites had sinned they came to Samuel to tell him of 
their fall and their repentance, but they hardly dared to ask him 
for his prayers. His answer should encourage us: "God forbid,'* 
he said, "that I should do this sin against the Lord, that I should 
cease to pray for you." He would have sinned, he would have 
betrayed the trust God had placed in him did he cease to pray for 
the people even though they were in reality unworthy of his pray- 
ers. And so would it be with Mary. She would fail — fail in her 
office — did she refuse to pray for the humblest sinner that had 
recourse to her. But, my children, is it likely that she would? 
Jesus has said of her that her greatest glory lies in this that she 
"heard God's word and kept it." When the woman in the crowd 
lifted up her voice and praised His mother, Jesus' answer in effect 
was that while that was indeed a privilege, there was still greater 
blessedness. Rather blessed, He said, are they that hear the word 
of God and keep it. In the words of Jesus then — Mary's great- 
est glory is that best of all God's creatures she heard His word 
and kept it perfectly. And is it conceivable, I ask, that she should 
forget the word He spoke to her when she stood at the foot of the 
Cross ? That she should so belie His praise as not to hear and not to 
keep the most solemn word that was ever spoken to her, "Woman, 
behold thy Son." But such misgivings are only suggestions from 
others, or from controversy, or from the devil. They have no solid 
foothold in our own hearts. They constitute no real doubt in our 
minds of the goodness of Mary or of her unwillingness to help us. 
Our own experience is the best refutation and gives the lie direct 
to all such disquieting thoughts. Mary loves us, we are sure of it, 
as a child is sure of his mother's love, and for the same reason — 
not because we deserve it or because we can prove it satisfactorily 



OUR LADY 167 

to others — but because she is now, and has throughout our whole 
life always shown herself to be, our dear mother. 

Full of this confidence then let me ask you now to kneel at her 
feet and beg her blessing on the resolutions of this retreat. Recall 
them to your mind whilst I in your name beg her to bless you. 

Prayer and Consecration to Mary. 

Sweet Queen of Heaven, look down from thy bright throne to- 
night upon thy children gathered round thy lowly shrine in this 
little chapel and asking thy blessing ere they go. "Woman, behold 
thy children." I consecrate them with fullest confidence to thee. 
Let not my sins or unworthiness be a bar to thy blessing for them. 
Look at their need, think only of their good desire and let thy 
mother's heart plead for them. They want to be thy true children, 
to give up all sin, to love their Heavenly Father and to have the 
spirit of Jesus. Dear Mother, help them. Teach them the virtues 
of the Sacred Heart, obedience, restraint and love. At thy knee, 
dear Mother, the Infant Jesus practised obedience, and for thirty 
years He was subject to thy sweet control. O handmaid of the 
Lord, teach them this great virtue. Let them know that meekness 
and humility must guard and preserve it if is to last or flourish 
in their souls. Spouse of Holy Joseph, help them to sanctify their 
daily toil. Obtain that the splendor of the Lord God shine on all 
the work they do with a good intention. Let not the spirit of the 
world lead them to forget that they have not here a lasting city, 
but they look for one that is to come. And oh, Mother most pure, 
Virgin of Virgins, fragrant lily of Israel, keep them chaste. Let 
them look on chastity as the brightest and loveliest of all their 
spiritual jewels, and fill them with courage to make any sacrifice, 
to give up all rather than dim its radiant lustre. And, Mother of 



168 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

the humble home of Nazareth, teach them to be kind. Let them 
resolve "never to take offence," to be the angel of their house and 
to cherish with special affection those whom God has given them 
at home. That they may do all this, teach them how to pray. Pre- 
pare their souls to receive with Faith and Desire the Body, Blood, 
Soul and Divinity of Jesus in Holy Communion, and fill their 
hearts with loving confidence in thy motherly protection. If only 
they could love thee truly, how secure would they be in life and 
in death. 

Get me the grace to love thee more, 
Jesus will grant if thou wilt plead ; 
And mother, when life's cares are o'er, 
Oh I will love thee then indeed. — Faber. 
Amen. 



PERSEVERANCE 169 



XIV. PERSEVERANCE 

"I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept tht 
faith. As to the rest there is laid up for me a crown of Justice which the 
Lord the just Judge will render to me in that day, and not only to me but to 
them also that love His coming." — 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8. 

SYNOPSIS. — (1) We should at the end of our Retreat face our future life as 
the Apostles faced theirs when Jesus ascended into heaven. They re- 
turned to Jerusalem with joy founded: (a) On their increased faith. 
Now they believed that Jesus Christ was really God. (b) On their as- 
sured hope — He had gone to prepare a place for them in heaven. 

(2) What Jesus did for them the Retreat has done in its way for us. 
(a) it has increased our faith. We have been near to Jesus and our 
resolutions are based not on feelings or passing emotion, but on Faith. 
(&) it has strengthened our hope. It has been the coming of Jesus. 
We have loved that coming, and have gained the crown. Now all have 
to hold it fast and we should joyfully strive to do so by continuing to 
love the coming of Jesus. 

(1) In Prayer. A warning against Mechanical prayer. 

{2) in holy mass. It is the continuation of the Sacrifice of Calvary 

for our individual sake. 
(3) in holy communion. Jesus comes to help us to lead His life, 
to keep our faith and to become true children of our Father in 
heaven. 

To those who have given their spiritual energies bravely and per- 
severingly as you have done, to the work of a Retreat it is almost 
inevitable to feel regret when it is over. The last conference can 
hardly hope to be cheerful. As we thought in the beginning, the 
Retreat has been the coming of Jesus. The exercises, the quiet, 
the seclusion, the visits to the Blessed Sacrament, the Spiritual 
Reading, the Conferences have all helped to bring Him very close 
to us and at times perhaps we have felt Him very near. And now 
all is over. We go back to our dull drab workaday lives once more 
where the bustle, the roar, the racket, the gossip, the papers, the 






i;o A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

business, the amusements of life, all seem to combine to drive Jesus 
far off and leave us once again to ourselves, and to the alternating 
efforts and relapses which perhaps have made up your spiritual 
lives in the past, and have left us so dismally far behind where we 
might have been. 

Such a feeling of sadness, I say, is almost natural, and in so far 
as it is evidence of the fervor of our retreat, is praiseworthy. But 
it will not do at all to indulge it. We must go with confidence to the 
fight now proposed to us or we shall never secure the victory. 
And this feeling is the very contradiction of confidence. 

When our Lord first told his disciples that He was to leave them 
He had to offer them comfort and consolation, they were so dis- 
heartened. "Because I have spoken these things to you," He said, 
"sorrow hath filled your heart, but I tell you the truth — it is ex- 
pedient to you that I go" (John xvi, 6). But when the time came 
and He actually left them they had no sorrow. On the contrary 
St. Luke tells us how at the end "He led them out as far as 
Bethania and lifting up His hands He blessed them. And it came 
to pass whilst he blessed them he departed from them and was 
carried up to heaven. And they adoring went back into Jerusalem 
with great joy" (xxiv, 50). And so by God's Providence what 
they had dreaded so much in the prospect turned out in the event 
to be for them a source of joy and encouragement. So I think 
should the close of this Retreat be for you. If you think of it too, 
you will see with me that you have the same reasons for rejoicing 
as the Apostles had. 

For how was it that they could find joy on the day that robbed 
them of Jesus? It was far harder for them to lose the strength 
and comfort of His presence than it can ever be for us. A much 
sterner contest awaited them. "You shall be hated by all men for 



PERSEVERANCE 171 

My Name's sake." As He had been cast out despised and perse- 
cuted, so were they to be. "For the disciple is not greater than his 
Master. If they have persecuted Me they will also persecute you" 
(John xv, 20). Moreover, for three whole years they had enjoyed 
His constant companionship. He had been their friend, their sup- 
port, their defender on all occasions. And on their side they had 
given up all things to be with Him. And now He had left them. 
Surely, I say, if there could be excuse for dejection and despond- 
ency, most certainly the disciples had that excuse. It is worth 
while trying to discover what it was that in spite of their loss had 
been such a gain to them that "they went back to Jerusalem with 
great joy." 

The source of their joy was, I think, twofold — first their faith 
was increased and next their confidence was enlivened. 

They understood now as they had never done before that Jesus 
was in very truth the Son of God. With their own eyes they had 
seen Him actually ascend into heaven. Lord of Heaven and Earth, 
Master of Life and Conqueror of Death. Who could He be but 
God ? The Emmanuel, the Messiah ? And He had lived with them ! 
For three years He had been their constant companion. How every 
word and act of that gracious life, transfigured now by the glory 
of the Divinity, must have come back to their minds with fresh and 
altogether new significance. The dangers that threatened them 
appeared now in a new light — they assumed their proper propor- 
tions. The world had lost its terrors. They were not to face it, 
it is true, until they had been embued with strength from on high, 
but their hearts were full of the joy of certain victory. For who 
is He that overcometh the world but he that believes that Jesus is 
the Son of God (John v, 5). Jesus then had heard their prayer, 
"Lord increase our faith," and by allowing them to witness His 






172 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

ascension had so strengthened them that in the day of their trial 
they were strong to bear His departure bravely. The enlivening of 
their Hope was another source of their joy and consolation. Up 
to the very end their minds had been strangely fixed on the goods 
of this life. The very last question they asked Him before the 
Ascension had been: "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again 
the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts i, 6). But now they understood it 
all. "My kingdom is not of this world" (John xviii, 36) had now 
for them its full and true significance. The hope to be the great 
ones of His court here was shattered finally and forever, but only 
to make way for the larger and more certain hope of the possession 
of the kingdom of their Lord hereafter. "I go to prepare a place 
for you," He had said, "that where I am you also may be" (John 
xiv, 2). They had seen Him ascend to take possession of His 
kingdom. And there was His clear promise to them that He had 
gone to prepare a place in that kingdom for them. 

Here, then, we see why the Apostles found consolation even on 
the day of their Lord's departure from them. Their faith in His 
Godhead was confirmed and the hope of their own future glory was 
assured. And I say the retreat has brought to you the same two 
sources of consolation: An increase of faith and fresh assurance 
to your hope, and in the strength of these two favors you can and 
should return to your homes with the same joy that filled the 
Apostles when they returned to Jerusalem. As your perseverance 
depends so much on your starting out with joyful courage I want 
to convince you of this. 

The retreat is above all things else a time of faith. We look at 
Jesus and Jesus looks at us. Almost continuously we are engaged 
in things that have to do with God and our souls. We remind our- 
selves of God's claims ; we see how we have fallen short. Then we 



PERSEVERANCE 173 

see what we ought to be and put Jesus before us as our model. To 
attain His spirit is utterly beyond our power, so we throw ourselves 
on the mercy of our Saviour and He comes to our assistance. And 
so all the time we are engaged in the vital and necessary truths of 
faith and salvation — the only truths that we should really bother our 
heads about. And we see them as God sees them. The eternal 
truths are not put before us as they sometimes are in novels and 
plays and magazine articles. No, Jesus speaks with authority. And 
in the light of this teaching we set our house in order and make our 
resolutions for the future. Now I ask you to pay especial attention 
to this point. We base our resolution on the teaching of faith. 
Jesus Christ is as truly God for us as He was for His Apostles. 
And it is in the light of His guidance and example that we draw 
up our plans for the future. Now the common temptation that 
draws people back to their hopeless and spiritless life of what is 
called "decent debility," if indeed it is no worse, is the suggestion 
from the devil that our retreat resolutions are not to be taken too 
seriously. It is well enough to make such resolutions. They are a 
recognized part of the retreat routine. But— so the temptation 
whispers — now the retreat is over and life becomes normal again 
one really can not be asked to make Ten Commandments of them. 
They were taken in a state of excitement and fervor when we 
were carried out of ourselves and hardly realized what we were 
undertaking. Common sense and every-day life must prune them 
down for us to what is practical, and save us from appearing 
ridiculous and attempting the extraordinary. And so, alas ! common 
sense and every-day life and Mrs. Grundy between them prune them 
down to a vanishing point, and what might have been the real and 
fruitful result of a good retreat is voted outside the range of prac- 
tical politics. 






174 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Now here it is that faith comes to help us if we would only 
let it. It reminds us that it is simply not true to say that re- 
treat resolutions are based on religious excitement. Never in 
our lives do we judge of sacred and vital things with calmer or 
fuller deliberation. We see such things perhaps for the first time 
from, as far as may be, God's point of view. We try at any rate to 
see them as He sees them — that is, to see them in truth and as 
they are. And then carefully weighing their importance and our 
possibilities, we make our resolutions. These are then the outcome 
of our faith, and have nothing to do with mere religious nervous- 
ness. We can say with the Psalmist: "I have believed, therefore 
have I spoken" (Ps. 115). It is the influence of the devil, the 
world and the flesh that afterwards warps our judgment. And we 
are letting ourselves be hoodwinked by the devil when we allow a 
temptation, a sneer or sensuality to influence us to break a retreat 
resolution. No, let us make up our minds, here and now, to be firm 
and unwavering. Our salvation may be bound up with the way 
we keep the resolutions we have made this week. When tempta- 
tions come let our answer be : God has inspired me to make these 
resolutions. I will not be so untrue to God and to myself as to allow 
a passing whim, a sudden fiery blast of passion, or the sneer of 
men or women who never give religion a serious thought to cause 
me to break them. I was as the beggar at Jericho, blind and help- 
less when Jesus came to me in this retreat. Thank God I loved His 
coming. I cried to Him from out the depths of my misery, "Lord, 
that I may see." And He has heard. "Receive thy sight," He has 
said to me, "thy faith hath made thee whole." And I saw at least 
something of my misery and at least something of the infinite mercy 
of God, and in this light I am resolved to follow after in the foot- 
steps of Jesus as far as His Grace will allow glorifying God. 



PERSEVERANCE 175 

It is faith, then, that gives you the assurance that God has spoken 
to you that the words and example of Jesus are the words and 
example of the God-made Man, and armed with that faith you be- 
come sharers in the strength of the Apostles and can scorn your 
enemies. "For who is he that overcometh the world but he that 
believes that Jesus is the Son of God." Be resolved, then, first of all 
to be true to the sacred promises God has inspired you to make 
during this retreat. Have no fear and reject all compromise. "Let 
us run by patience to the fight proposed looking on Jesus the Author 
and Finisher of our faith" (Heb. xii, 1, 2). 

The second cause of the Apostles, joy — their hope, namely, of 
the throne that Jesus had gone to prepare for them, we can also 
share with them. "There is laid up for me," says the text, "a crown 
of justice which the Lord will render to me on that day, and not 
to me only, but to all them that love His coming." Now the retreat 
has been, as we have thought, the coming of Jesus. And by the 
way you have made it, making your confession, approaching each 
day to Holy Communion, following the instruction and all the exer- 
cises with piety and recollection, all this has proved that you have 
loved that coming. On the word of the Apostle, then, I can assure 
you that there is a crown in heaven laid up for you now. Were 
you to die to-day, what would be the greeting of Jesus to you? He 
has said Himself He will say to the just, "Come, ye blessed of My 
Father, possess ye the kingdom prepared for you." That kingdom, 
that crown, is there, prepared, made ready, awaiting you now. I 
can not see it, and you can not see it. But Jesus can see it. And 
Mary, your Mother, can see it; your Angel guardian, your Name 
Saints can see it and know it is kept for you. And those who are 
near and dear to you, a father or mother, a relation or friend, who 
have gone before you in the faith these can see, that now you have 



176 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

won your crown and there it is ready awaiting you. I am urging 
this feeling upon you because as it induces the joyous confidence of 
the Apostles it helps the soul very materially in the arduous work 
of perseverance. For as we know very well "the end is not yet," 
our time may not come for years. And the great question we have 
all to face is this : When that time does come, will our "crown be 
rendered to us in that day?" The doubtful factor in the situation 
is not the Power and is not the Goodness of God, but it lurks in the 
fickleness of our own will. Now I say, to encourage and strengthen 
that will it is important to remember that a great deal has already 
been done. That the initial difficulty has been, so to speak, suc- 
cessfully negotiated; and that your spiritual attitude now is no 
longer that of one striving to gain something that one has not got, 
but rather that of retaining what one already has. To you now the 
advice in the Apocalypse can encouragingly be given: "Hold fast 
that which thou hast that no one take thy crown" (Apoc. iii, n). 

So then it is with that confident feeling that we are to hold the 
crown we have already gained that we are to face the future. Now 
how are we to do this? The answer is quite simple: we are to hold 
our crown by the same means we used to gain it, viz., "by loving 
the coming of Jesus." What does this mean? When does Jesus 
come to us? Well, he comes to us especially on three occasions — 
in prayer, at Holy Mass, and in Holy Communion. Love His 
coming then at these times, and ask our Lady to help you with her 
own eagerness and love to welcome Jesus, and I am sure you will 
secure your crown at the end. 

Let us see what it means. In the first place with regard to 
prayer, we have thought of this already and have resolved to be 
faithful to night and morning prayer especially. It is not so much 
this or that devotion that is particularly needed, as the spirit of habit 



PERSEVERANCE 177 

of prayer. Night and morning prayers will be of no avail unless 
your soul is prepared already by a prayerful disposition and willing- 
ness to pray. We must remember Jesus is present when we pray 
and we must learn to love His coming. The great evil of the 
danger of mechanical prayer was very vividly impressed on my 
mind once by an incident that happened during a little mission in — 
of all places in the world — a small country town in Ireland. The 
other Father was preaching the evening sermon and I went to visit 
a man — almost the only one in the village that was not attending 
the mission. His wife was in great trouble about him — and well 
she might be. And one time it would have been hard to find a 
better Catholic anywhere. He was at Mass and at all the church 
services regularly. He went frequently to his duties; and he said 
prayers night and morning with his wife every day of his life. 
Then suddenly all was changed with him. He remained as sober, 
honest and industrious as ever. He was as good and kind to his 
wife and neighbors as he always had been — but he simply gave up 
prayer. He would not go to Mass or the Mission or to church at 
all. He never went on his knees himself nor would he let his wife 
do so in his presence. It was almost dusk when I got to him and 
he took me in at once in quite a friendly way to a little dark room 
at the back of his shop. He was all alone, for they had no children. 
He told me quite plainly how things stood with him spiritually. 
He was well instructed in his religion and believed in it he said as 
well as I did myself. But he said he had made up his mind that it 
was wrong to pray. Does not God know my soul already without 
my telling Him? If He sees anything wanting to me He can give 
it to me if He likes or He can refuse it. It is His affair, I am 
quite satisfied, and therefore I have no need to ask for anything. 
I told him of course that as he believed in Christ he ought to be- 



178 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

lieve in prayer. "Ask and you shall receive," I said, was Christ's 
own word. And He has taught us the Our Father. Just as I said 
that the church bell began to ring. It was a sign — as you know 
if you have attended mission — that the people in the church were 
saying the five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys in honor of the 
five wounds for the conversion of sinners. I stopped and said to 
him, "Do you know what they call that bell ?" "No," he answered. 
"Well," I said, "that is the sinners' bell and they are praying in 
church for those who are missing the mission. That means," I 
said, "they are praying especially for you. Come, now let us pray 
with them." I pulled out my beads and touching him on the knee 
I knelt down beside his chair and began the Our Father out loud. 
Well, now the moment I did so the change that came over that 
unfortunate man was appalling. He jumped up when I touched 
him as though he had been bitten by a serpent. He rushed to the 
other side of the room, and there holding out his hands against me 
and turning his face from me. "No! No! No!" he cried. "Get 
up! Get up! No prayers here — no prayers in this house. We 
have been good friends up to now, but if you don't get off your knees 
I tell you we shall be good friends no longer." He really seemed be- 
side himself. I got up and tried to soothe him, but it was useless. 
I had to leave him. He would not speak another word to me. 

Now my point is that that man had been saying prayers for 
years morning and night with his wife. Kneeling side by side with 
her he had used the same words and externally at all events had 
prayed exactly as she had done. Yet she continued holy and he 
seemed to have fallen so utterly away from grace that I never in 
my life knew one who gave such little hope of his salvation. If 
he did not pray, surely he was lost. The devil had no need to tempt 
him to other sins. Unless God by a miracle, in answer to the 



PERSEVERANCE 179 

prayers of the poor afflicted wife, rescued him, he seemed already 
to have given himself over to final impenitence. Now how was it? 
The only answer can be that all along he had been praying as one 
tempting God. It was at best "lip service," he was praying to his 
Creator, and God did not accept it. Do not then be satisfied with 
saying so many words to God. See that you say them properly. 
Remember prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God. 
Jesus comes to you in prayer. Raise, then, your mind and heart 
to greet Him, and thus will you help on the work of your per- 
severance by loving the coming of Jesus. 

Next Jesus comes in Holy Mass. When the words of consecra- 
tion are said we believe that He is here upon the altar and we be- 
lieve that He is here to continue the Sacrifice of Calvary. Faith 
teaches us it is one and the same Sacrifice. There is no blood- 
shedding, it is true; no torture of the body or soul, and only the 
mystical death — but it is the same Sacrifice for all that and for this 
reason: What made the Crucifixion of Christ a sacrifice was the 
offering of the Sacred Heart of all the sufferings and death to His 
Father for us men and our salvation. Without that offering there 
would have been no Sacrifice. Now that is just what takes place 
at Holy Mass. The same Sacred Heart is here making that same 
offering. Jesus is the Lamb that was slain but continues to plead 
for us — ever living to make intercession for us. The Lamb standing 
slain — offering His sufferings and death for us until the consum- 
mation of the world, and when we are present at Mass the offering 
is especially for us. Jesus lets us use His Sacrifice as though it 
were our own. Through Him and with Him and in Him we can 
do the great works God has made us to do on earth. We can adore 
God. We can say "I am so great a sinner before Thee that I am 
not worthy to raise my eyes to heaven. But here I offer Thee the 



l8o A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS 

Adoration of that Son in whom Thou art well pleased." And by 
so doing we give to God an act of worship more adequate and more 
pleasing than is or could ever be the Adoration of our blessed Lady, 
and that of all the Angels and Saints of heaven combined. For 
literally we give to God the Adoration of a God-made man. We 
can give thanks — a distinct and definite duty and one so little thought 
of that the Apostle more than a dozen times calls attention to it in 
his epistles. "What shall I render to the Lord for all he hath 
rendered unto me, I will take the Chalice of Salvation and I will 
call upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. cxv, 12). Here is the very 
Chalice of Salvation which our Lord Himself used in thanksgiving 
at the Last Supper. "Taking the Chalice," we are told, "He blessed 
and gave thanks." 

We ask pardon for sin. For here is that Precious "Blood which 
was shed for the remission of sin" (Matt, xxvi, 28). "O God," we 
can cry. "For the Blood of Jesus have mercy on me. Through the 
merits of that Blood which I here offer Thee, pardon me my sins." 
And we ask for Grace. Jesus is pleading here, and we can offer 
that pleading of His as though it were our own. Let us rouse our 
faith; to adore, to give thanks, to ask for pardon, and to ask for 
grace are the great works, works we have to do in this world. And 
here in Holy Mass Jesus does these perfectly and does them for 
us. Here He gives glory to God and peace on earth to men of 
good will. He does our works for us and all our ways are peace. 
If we but realized this, surely we should love the coming of Jesus 
at the moment of Consecration and eagerly avail ourselves not only 
of the Mass of obligation, but of every opportunity that presented 
itself of being present at this adorable Sacrifice. 

And lastly we must love the coming of Jesus in Holy Communion. 
Of this great subject I have spoken at length already. It only re- 



PERSEVERANCE 181 

mains for me now to recommend it to you as a great means of 
perseverance. On Easter Sunday, the general Communion day of 
the Church, Priests are ordered to read at the Epistle the in- 
spired words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: "Christ, our Pasch, is 
sacrificed. Therefore let us not feast with the old leaven, but with 
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Christ sacrificed for 
us in the Mass becomes in the Holy Communion (as the food of 
our souls) the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. He comes 
to fill us with His spirit — the spirit which animated Him when He 
declared to Pontius Pilate: "For this was I born; for this came I 
into the world that I might give testimony of the truth." Hitherto 
perhaps our great failing has been want of sincerity. Like the 
Apostles we needed our Lord's warning. "Beware of the leaven 
of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." Not conscious hypocrisy so 
much as that spirit which strives to please the world and yet is 
persuaded it is serving God. This is impossible. "You can not serve 
God and Mammon," and "He that is not with Me is against Me." 
Cast out that old leaven — this worldly spirit. Receive Jesus in 
Holy Communion — every day of your life if you are able. "He 
that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me." He will fill you 
with the Spirit of truth to enable you by your whole life to proclaim 
the truth that God is the Lord and Master and Father of us all, 
whom it is our highest duty as it is our truest happiness to serve. 
Love the coming of Jesus in Holy Communion. For to them that 
received Him to them He gave power to become the children of 
God. 

To sum up. The retreat has been for you the coming of Jesus. 
You have looked at the Sacred Heart and have learned there the 
virtues of the Spirit of Jesus. And you have profited by your 
retreat. You have loved the coming of Jesus — and so you have 



182 A RETREAT FOR WOMEN IN BUSINESS. 

won your crown. Now, to hold fast that which you have, to per- 
severe to the end, ask our Lady to enable you always to love the 
cdming of Jesus in prayer, in Mass, and in Holy Communion, for 
in proportion to your doing that with faith will be your right to 
take comfort and find strength in the Apostle's words : "There is 
laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the Just Judge 
will render to me in that day, and not to me only but to all them 
that love His coming." 



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